
Class 

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DESCRIPTIVE PORTRAITURE 



EUROPE 

IN STORM AND CALM 



TWENTY YEARS' EXPERIENCES AND REMINISCENCES 
OF AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST 



SKETCHES AND RECORDS OF NOTED EVENTS, CELEBRATED PERSONS AND 

PLACES, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS IN FRANCE, SPAIN, 

GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, HOLLAND, BELGIUM, AUSTRIA, 

HUNGA R J ', ROUMA XI A , TURKE J -IN-EUROPE, 

SWITZERLAND, AND ITALY 



BY 

EDWARD KTNG 

AUTHOR OP "THE CHEAT SOUTH," "FRENCH POLITICAL LEADERS," "ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT,' 

ETC., ETC. 



Over One Hundred Illustrations from Dcsi^tis made expressly for this il nrk 

By FELIX REGAMEY, Paris, 

A nd otliers 

By J. WELLS CHAMPNEY, New York 



Published by 
('. A. NICHOLS & COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 

18S6 



Copyright, 1885. 
Ev C. A. NICHOLS & in. 



All rights /-. : * vi d. 

ByTrtntftr 

D. C. Public Library 

JAN 9- 1934 






INTRODUCTION 



IF the courteous reader will take the trouble to pass in review his memo- 
ries of 1867 he will probably discover that it was at that period that 
the current of travel from America to Europe assumed large proportions, 
and that a consequent increase of interest in European affairs was felt by the 
whole American public. l T p to the completion of the Atlantic cable that 
public had but spasmodic tits of curiosity as to events beyond the seas, and 
it had been so passionately absorbed in the strengthening and asserting of its 
own national life in the midst of the throes of the great civil war, that it 
thought of Europe only as a stately pleasure-ground, filled with ancient 
castles, rivers fringed with picturesque ruins, and sovereigns who disposed, 
pretty much at their will, of the lives of soldiers who occasionally fought 
each other amid much pomp and pageantry. The amateur student, the man 
of letters, the painter, and the millionaire, who had lived for a few years in 
Madrid, or Paris, or London, seemed to acquire in the eves of their fellow- 
townsmen, when they returned, an added romantic charm, from the fact, 
that they had been to Europe. Conscientious tourists have, perhaps, been 
less numerous and less painstaking in their observation in the past few years 
than in the days before 1830 or l<S-t!s, when those who travelled at all 
travelled by packet and by stage-coach, and enlivened the accounts of their 
experiences with many references to their perils on flood and field, and their 
vicissitudes by nights in country inns, lint after the cable was laid, and 
the panorama of Europe's events passed under the daily notice of the most 
omnivorous readers in the world, there was an annual rush to Europe, and 
he or she who had not been across seas felt a certain lack in education which 
it was a trifle humiliating to admit. 

It seemed, also, to those who had been to Europe to study the movements 
of its varied populations, or to witness the strange march of its variegated 

.... 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

whereas it was merely jogging along as before: only now the events which 
had been but vaguely heard of, or told of long alter they had transpired, were 
at once recited for the benefit of Americans with a minuteness and attention 
to detail which were not accorded them even in the countries where they took 
place. The cable made the appetite for Old-World news so keen that the 
American public presently found itself better informed as to what was occur- 
ring in Paris —even as to the tittle-tattle of social circles — than about the 
sain.' class of affairs or gossip in New York or Philadelphia. Whole colonies 
of newly enriched Americans settle. I in London, in Paris, in Vienna, and in 
all the cities which, by their historic prestige or by their local charm, 
exercised powerful attraction upon those who had large means at their 
command. The American, with his open purse and genial manners, took 
the place in the respect of the foreign landlord and shopkeeper which was 
so long held by the English nobleman, with his post-chaise and his passion 
tor St. Julien. Europe was pleased with its new visitors, nattered at their 
undisguised delight, and, while it now and then laughed at their easy atti- 
tude and their extreme frankness, it welcomed them as one always wel- 
comes those who bring profit in their train. 

At this same period, when the American had awakened or renewed his 
interest in the parent lands from which his composite nationality had sprung 
the Old World was entering upon a season of terrible storm, interspersed, it 
is true, with fitful calm, but storm quickly recurrent, violent, and sweeping 
in its results. Europe had apparently settled down, after the wars of 1854- 
55, and of 1859, to uninterrupted enjoyment of the rest which the "party 
ot order," in all the Continental countries, had endeavored to inaugurate 
after 1848. 

The era of conferences and expositions seemed almost to indicate 
the relinquishment of the old policy of plunder, partition, and political 
gambling. Secular enemies protested their future eternity of friendship; 
empires talked of founding themselves upon peace; small nations smiled 
in their fancied security; and the "balance of power" was still believed 
in even by so clever a man as M. Thiers. 

But suddenly the face of the European world was changed. The great 
movement of unification — the sublime work of this last half of the nine- 
teenth century — was begun in earnest. < hit of the sands of Brandenburg 
- 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

supreme influence in the Germanic States; Sadowa was fought ; the balance 
of power was almost a forgotten illusion ; the policy of compensation so long 
talked of was scattered to the winds ; the military strength of France was 
broken; the English in their insular fortress trembled lest their own pecu- 
liar position might be changed; the German Emperor was crowned in 
Versailles ; the kingdom of Italy took back its rightful heritage of Rome ; the 
temporal power of the Pope was broken ; the Republic and its attendant. 
reforms were declared in France and Spain; and the Powers of the North 
appeared no longer shadowy, but gigantic ami imposing real forms, 
asserting with emphasis and might their future supremacy. England, 
with her vast domain scattered through the seas, seemed happily free 
from the entanglements of politics upon the Continent, and found consola- 
tion in the development of her so-called Imperial policy, waiting an early 
opportunity of asserting her equality with these new masters of the 
European situation. The great storm of the war of 1870-71, in which 
the French empire and the last vestiges of monarchy in France disappeared ; 
the triumphs and the exactions of the Germans ; the. swift uprising to im- 
portance of the Italians, — were things which upset all European calculations. 
The forward movement for the division into large States — movement so 
long cheeked by consummate statesmen, — had begun in earnest, and was 
to be carried on with but trifling interruption henceforward. Then came 
the enormous cataclysm of the Commune, — the final and terrible effort of 
Socialism on the soil of France ; after which the gaunt spectre took up her 
northward march, soon to terrify the Germans, flushed with their victories, 
and the Russians busy with their ambitious plans for conquest in Europe 
and Asia. After this there was a lull, soon succeeded by another storm, — 
the great convulsion out of which were born new kingdoms, new nations 
in South-Eastern Europe; and then it was that England, seeing her oppor- 
tunity, — perhaps using it with hesitation and too feebly, yet seeing and 
seizing it, — maintained the place which she might have lost. The ashes 
of national feeling in the scattered States in the South-East, which had 
so long been tributary to the Turk, were fanned into flames. The work 
of revolt was quick and hardy. The sympathy of England was keen, far- 
reaching, strong. There was a race between Russia and Great Britain for 
mastery and prestige in the Balkan peninsula. The revolution in the 
Herzegovina and in Bosnia, the successful war in Servia, the exposure of 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

the outrages in Bulgaria, were followed by the quick descent of :i powerful 
army from the North. The great Russo-Turkish war of 1877 was begun ; 
and then if Mas seen that the Eastern Question, which had been so long 

derided as an antique fossil, to be looked at, taken to pieces now and 
again, and relegated to the comfortable obscurity where it was thought to 
belong, was thenceforth a vital, all-important factor in European politics. 
The hand of England was raised to present the complete triumph of the 
conquering Russians; Constantinople was saved from the invader; but both 
those who wished to invade it and those who desired to protect it recognized 
that its fate must soon be sealed. Bulgaria, so long prostrate, rose to a 
principality; Roumania and Servia became kingdoms; Roumelia, almosl a 
Russian province. Greece sprang to arms, and took Thessaly from the Turks. 
The Emperors of the North already hinted at an alliance with the mysterious 
empire, whose name means the Empire of tin' East, "Austria Infelix," — 
one day, perhaps, to be " Fortunate Austria : " and the Latin Stall's, alarmed, 
disgusted, and amazed, felt constrained to spend their energy upon internal 
reforms and improvements. Beaconsfield had shown a bold front at the 
Berlin Congress, but he passed away, and the milder demeanor of Gladstone 
left but little fear in the minds of the riders of the North that their prestige 
would be wrested from them by any of those alliances once so easily made 
and so easily broken. 

The changes thus achieved in a few short years: the unification of two 
great sets of States in Italy and Germany; reduction to the second plan, as 
the theatrical architects say. of France and Austria ; the placing in doubt, of 
the exact status of England in relation to general European affairs; the 
menace conveyed to the small European States like Belgium, Holland, 
Switzerland, and others, which had long fancied themselves secure; the up- 
rising of new States, and the release from barbarous despotism ot all South- 
Eastern Europe, soon to be seamed with through lines of rail, and by the 
opening up ot' its vast resources to exercise new influence on European com- 
merce; the secure and patient progress of Great Britain towards those re- 
forms which to-day even the highest in rank of her privileged classes admit 
as necessary and just, — these, with their attendant weight of romantic, 
picturesque, and pathetic occurrences, have tilled full with the wonderful 
and the thrilling a period of half a generation, some episodes from which the 
author has embodied in his humble book. For, without special assumption 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

of humility, it would ill become him to assume any other motive, in present- 
ing the following pages, than that of reviewing, here amply, there cursorily, — 
now with the confidence born of personal knowledge, now with the hesita- 
tion which accompanies hearsay, — this splendid succession of events, large 
and little, from 1867 to the present, time. 

So he, without further parley, invites the reader to witness with him the 
downfall of the Second French Empire ; the pageants of the great Exposi- 
tion ; to look in at a sovereign's palace or an Empress's boudoir; assist at a 
diplomatic intrigue or the production of a famous opera-bouffe ; to he a guest 
at a royal wedding or a hull-tight; get under tire at a barricade ; "do" a 
revolution; follow the track of contending armies and be incarcerated as a 
spy ; see the declaration of a Republic and the execution of a noted criminal ; 
be besieged and besieger; help at the coronation of an Emperor and at the 
flight of an Empress ; go through from beginning to end the greatest and 
most sanguinary insurrection of modern times ; peep in on busy England, — 
on its sports, its industries, its politics ; see a Passion Play ; be mobbed at an 
Irish National Land League meeting: go down across the fields and through 
the deflles of Bulgaria to the Balkans; talk of the Sultan and the Emperor 
of Austria : see Bismarck at home and abroad, on horseback and in his 
study ; eat roasted mutton in an insurgent camp with knives which have but 
lately served to kill Turks: and, finally, to take a hasty glance at the great 
colonial game on which all European Powers have (altered in the last few 
years. 

If the reader finds here and there too much of storm, let him turn to the 
pages in which is reflected some little of that serenity and repose for which 
European society is so much to be envied. If he will have it that the verdict 
on certain men who stood high, and dazzled while they stood, is too severe, 
let him reflect that the author but expresses the opinion which has come to 
be that of the majority in Europe ; for there is no doubt that, in the 
future, European majorities will be democratic, non-Imperial, progressive . 
and it cannot be denied that, as in Vienna a new and beautiful capital has 
been built like a ring round an ancient, black, and grimy town, so, spring- 
ing up all round European tradition and formula are the light and bright 
edifices of modern institutions. If Europe fights so much, she does not fight 
in vain. Each period of storm and thunder makes the sky clearer, the 
spectacle on the horizon more impressive, more beautiful. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



IN this volume the author has endeavored to embody the results of a 
lengthy term of special correspondence in Europe, during which time 
he has contributed letters and articles upon the political and general sit- 
uation. During a large part of the epoch covered by the narrative in 
this volume, the author enjoyed exceptional opportunities for observing 
the conduct of affairs in the various European countries of which he has 
ventured to treat, and has endeavored impartially and faithfully to de- 
scribe events which are among the most important of the century. 

In the task of this portrayal he has been aided by the talent and 
skill of M. Felix Regamey, a distinguished Parisian illustrator, who has 
contributed more than one hundred original sketches to the work; and 
to the pencil of Mr. J. Wells Champney, well known in the artistic 
world. 

It would be impossible in the limits of a single volume to describe, 
even in the simplest fashion, all the great events which have taken place 
in Europe from 1867 to the present time. The author has contented 
himself with embodying in his narrative those with which he was most 
familiar; and he trusts that the public will acquit him of any attempt 
to be either profound or sensational. He has tried to tell a simple story 
which may afford pleasure and profit to the general reader. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Volcanic Shimmer. — Paris in 1867. — The Second Empire at the Height of its Glory. 

— The Crowning of the Edifice. — The Festival of Peace. — The Prophecy of Evil.— 
Napoleon Receives Distinguished Guests. — Attempted Assassination of Alexander 

II. — The Sultan in Paris. —The Luxembourg Panic. — The Hidden Forces at Work, 21 

CHAPTER II. 

The Imperial Court at Compiegne. — An Historic City. — Luxury and Splendor. — Napoleon 
Ill's Courtship. — The Countess of Montijo. — What an Imperial Hunting-Party Cost. 

— Aping the First Empire. — The Imperial Family. — Parvenus and Princes. — The 
Programme of the Season at Compiegne. — How the Guests were Received. — The Im- 
perial Theatre. — What the People Paid for. — Prince Napoleon. — Princess Clothilde, 31 

chapter hi. 

What was the Second Empire? — How was it Created? — The Perjury of the Prince Presi- 
dent. — The Plebiscite. — The Massacres of December. — General Changarnier, and 
his Fidelity to his Country. —The Protest of the Deputies. — Struggle of the Citizens. 

— The Reign of Terror. — The Imperial Eagle. — A Period of Absolute Repression . 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Imperial Reforms Come Too Late. — Uprising of the Internationale. — The Com- 
mune Foreshadowed ............. 49 

CHAPTER V. 

Events in Spain. — The Outcropping of Revolution. — R6le of the Internationale. — Brief 
Review of Spanish Politics. — Dona Isabel. — Prim and Serrano. — A Journey 
through the North of Spain. — Biarritz and San Sebastian. — A Wonderful Rail- 
way. — The Approach to the Escurial. — An Impressive Edifice. — Looking at a Dead 
Monarch 55 

CHAPTER VI. 

In Revolution Time. — Saragossa. — A Quaint Old Spanish City. — The Protest against the 
Reestablishment of Monarchy. — A Vigorous Fight. — The Church of the Virgin 
Del Pilar. — On the Way to Valencia. — Down to the Mediterranean. — Alicante. — The 
Grao. — Getting into Valencia before the Bombardment. — An Adventurous Prome- 
nade. — Crossing the Streets under Fire. —A Barricaded Hotel. — Street Fighting in 
Earnest. — Republicans and Regulars 64 



CONTEXTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Nine Days' Fight in Valencia. — Alamenos ami the Bombardment. — The Insurgents 
ami their Tactics. — Departure of the Consuls. — Picturesque ami Romantic Episode. 
— An Interrupted Breakfast. — Meeting of the Brothers. — The End of the Struggle. — 
Scenes in the Market-place. — In the Cathedral after the Battle. — Castelar and his 
Endeavors for Liberty. — Spanish Politics since 1869. — Spanish Characteristics. — The 
Religious Passion Plays. — The Sublime and the Ridiculous in Religion 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Ten Years After. — The Kingship Reestablished in Spain. — doing to a Royal Wedding. — 
The French Gate of the Sea. — Marseilles. -Reminiscences of the Pestilence. — 
Napoleon III. and Marseilles. — Barcelona. — The Catalonian People. — From Bar- 
celona to Valencia. — A Retrospect. — A Spanish Bishop. — Tortosa. — In the 
Beautiful South. — In the Market-place of Valencia. —Out of the World into 



Church 



CHAPTER IX. 

Madrid and its Gloom. — The Royal Wedding in 1879. — Queen Christina and King 
Alfonso. — The Puerta del Sol. — The Church of the Atocha. — Memories of Dona 
Isabel. — Royal Rejoicings. — An Interview with Castelar. — Gambetta and Castelar 
Compared ............... 91 



CHAPTER X. 

The Bull-Fight in Madrid before the King and Queen. — Eight Bulls Slaughtered. — A 
Strange Sport. — Excitement of the Populace. — The Matador. — Duels between 
Men and Beasts 101 



CHAPTER XL 

The Famous Museum in Madrid. — The Palace of the Cortes. — Noted Tapestries. — A 
Visit to Toledo. — The Spanish Cloak and its Character. — A Fonda. — Beggars. — ■ 
The Grotto of Hercules. — The Alcazar. — In the Ancient Church .... Ill 



CHAPTER XII. 

Dead Celebrities. — Don Alvaro de Luna ami his Famous ( 'hapel in Toledo. — The Ancient 
Gates. — The Cloister of San Juan de Los Reyes. — Cordova. — The Mezquita. — A 
Relic of the Moors. — The Plain of Seville. - -The (lira Ida. — The Cathedral. — The 
Hardens of the Aleazar. — The Duke of Montpensier IL'l 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The French Empire in 1809. — Subterranean Throes. — Manifestations. — The Assassina- 
tion id' Victor Noir. — Pierre Bonaparte. — The R6le of Rochefort. — Two Hundred 
and Fifty Thousand Workmen singing the Marseillaise. — The Imperial Press Law, lo2 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Emperor and his Speeches from the Throne. — Opening Day of the Corps Legis- 
latif. — The Opposition. — Sketches of the Leading Members. — M. Thiers and his 
Attitude towards the Second Empire. — The Splendor of his Irony. — His Eloquence 
Characterized. — Berryer. Lanjuinais, Jules Simon, and Jules Ferry. — Rochefort 
and his Yellow Gloves HO 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Epoch of Unification. — Danger to France from the National Growth in Italy and Ger- 
many. — Napoleon III. and his Policy of Greed. — How He was Duped by the 
Northern Powers. — The King of Prussia at Compiegne. — The ( pronation March. — 
Bismarck in Paris. — The Luxembourg Affair. — Benedetti and Bismarck. — The 
Downfall of the Policy of Compensation . . 148 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Prcvost-Paradol and his Fatal Error. — A Journalist who Yielded to the Seductions of the 
Empire. — The Work which he had Done against Imperialism. — Danger of Riots in 
1870. — The Execution of Troppmann. — An Experience of the Secret Police. — Gus- 
tavo Flourens. — The Arrest of Rochefort. — Flourens and his Insurrection . . 156 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Intrigue of Marsha] Prim and Bismarck. — The Events which Led to the Declaration 
of War. — The Protest of M. Thiers. — Personal Reminiscences of the Excitement in 
Paris. — Anecdotes of the Unreadiness of the Second Empire. — General Ducrot and 
his Troubles in Strasbourg. — The Corruption and Incapacity of the French Quarter- 
master's Department. — No Rations. — No Ammunition ...... 165 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Departure of the Emperor for the War. — Volcanic Throes Renewed. — Movements of the 
Internationale. — The German Workingmen's Address. — The Imperial Court at Blois 

— Foreshadowing of the Commune. — M. Rothan's Revelations. — Bismarck and his 
Views of the War. — Alarm of the German People. — Fears of a French Invasion. 

— Entile Ollivier's Account of the Manner in which Hostilities were Decided upon. — 
M. Rothan and the Duke de Grarnont. — The French Minister of War is Surprised. — 
Marshal Le Bceuf's Deceptions 174 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Race for the Rhine. — Yon Moltke's Mysterious Journeys before the War. — Captain 
Samuel's Telegram. — The German Advance. — Scenes along the Historic Stream.— 
At Coblentz. — At Mayence. — The Road to Wiesbaden. — The Crown Prince at 
Speyer. — In the Pfalz. — The Bavarian Troops. — Their Appearance. — The Fright 
ot the Inhabitants 182 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XX. 



The Spectacle in the Palatinate. —A Visit to Landau. —The Saxon Troops on the March. 
— A Night Drive. — Echoes from Weissenburg. — Through the Glades to Kaiserslau- 
tern. — The Narrative of Strange Adventures which there befell us. — A Military 
Prison. — Challenging a Denunciator. — Arrested a Second Time .... 190 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Germersheim. — The Rhine Bed. — Across the Frontier. — ■ Weissenburg. — On to Woerth. 
— The Disaster to the French. — The German Descent of the Hill under Fire. — 
Charge of General Bonnemain's Cuirassiers. — The Valley of Hell. — MacMahon's 
Defeat. — The Horrors of the Retreat. — Frossard's Negligence. — Bazaine's Jealousy, 10(i 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Great Battles in front of and around Metz. — Friederich Karl. — The Saarbruck 
Affair. — Folly and Incompetence. — The Brandenburg Cavalry. — The Field of 
Rezonville. — Gravelotte. — Saint Privat. — Mars La Tour ..... SOS 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

French and German Rumors. — The Jaumont Quarries. — -Truth about this Incident. — 
The Wounded at Frankfort. — Serving in an Extempore Sanitary Corps. — Paris in 
Confusion. — The Spy Scare. — Dangerous to Speak the Truth. — A New Ministry. — 
Comte Do Palikao. — .Tules Favre's Campaign against the Falling Empire. —The 
Excited Crowds. — The Empire Ends, as it began, in blood ..... 214 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Declaration of the Republic. — Exciting Scenes on tin- Place de la Concorde ami the 
Boulevards. — Invasion of the Corps Legislatif. — Gambetta Pronounces the Down- 
fall of the Imperial Family. — The Procession to the Hotel de Ville. — The Flight of 
tie- Empress ............... 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Sedan. — The March to the Ardennes. — The Headstrong Palikao. — The frown Prince 
of Saxony's Army. — General De Failly at Beaumont. — The Retreat to Sedan. — 
General De Winrpffen comes upon the Scene. -Tie- Prussians Open Fire in front of 
Sedan. - Disaster to MacMahon. — Slaughtered by Invisible Enemies. — The Battle 
at Bazeilles. — De Wimpffen's Forlorn Hope ........ 241 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Quarrel between Ducrot and De Wimpffen. — The Interview with the Conquerors. — 
The Question of Alsatia liaised. — Divergence of Opinion between Bismarck and Von 
Moltke. — The French Council of War. — Napoleon's Departure from Sedan. — Na- 
poleon as a Prisoner. — Bismarck's Interview with Him. — Over the Battle-field. — 
Singular Appearance of the Dead. — King William on the F'ield. — His Meeting with 
Napoleon. — The M's in the Bonaparte History 251 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

A Solemn Situation. — Return of the Exiles. — The Spoils at the Tuileries. — Advance of 
the Germans. — The Military Strength of the French Capital. — The Sixteenth Siege 
of Paris. — Closing in. — Curious Sights in the Capital. — Gen. Trochu's Review. — 
A Visit to Asnieres. — Prussian Prisoners. — The Fight at Chatillon. — The French 
Retreat. — The Occupation of Versailles. — The Crown Prince of Prussia Visits the 
Ohl Home of Louis XIV 2G1 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Enemies Face to Face. — -.Jules Favre and Bismarck at Ferrieres. — Personal Character- 
istics of the German Chancellor. — His Notions about France. — A Portrait of llim 
by Favre. — His Opinion of Napoleon III. — He Deceived Everybody. — The Crush- 
ing Terms Demanded of France. — The Force of Caricatures. — M. Favre Considers 
his Mission at an End 2G9 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Army of Strasbourg. — General Uhrich and the Fortress which he had to Defend. — 
The Forts. — The Cathedral. — Fire and Bombardment. — The Tyranny of the Mob. — 
Immense Destruction. — Loss of one of the most Valuable Libraries in the World. — 
German Siege Tactics. — The Spectacle after the Surrender ..... 278 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Through the Conquered Country. — Strasbourg after its Trial. — Railway Journeys under 
Prussian Military Rule. — Nancy. — The Bavarians. — Epernay. — The Story of 
Pere Jean. — Getting up to Versailles. — The Voices of the Forts .... 289 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Period of Hope. — Splendid Improvisation of Defense. — What Paris did under 
Pressure. — The Forts and their Armament. — The Departure of Gambetta in a Bal- 
loon. — Outcroppings of the Commune. — Fights outside the Walls of the Capital. — 
The Defense of Chateaudun. — A Bright Page in French Military Annals. — A Panic 
at Versailles. — Von Moltke saves bis Papers. — German Preparations for Defense . 300 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

The Siege of Metz. — Its Tragedies ami its Humors. — Steinmetz the Terrible. — Bazaine's 
Curious Indecision. — The Guerilla Warfare around the Fortress. — The Poisoned 
Wells Legend. — Starving the Citizens. — The Odor of Death. — General Changar- 
nier's Mission 308 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The Surrender of Metz. — The Suspicious Nature of Bazaine's Negotiations. — The En- 
voy from the Fallen Imperialists. — The Affair of the Flags. — The Prisoners in Front 
of Metz and in Camps in Germany .......... 310 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



The Desperate Battles at Le Bourget. — Remarkable Valor of the French. — Episodes of 
the Defense. — The ( !harge of the Marines. — Thiers and Bismarck. — The Insurrec- 
tion of the 31st of October. — Brilliant (.'(induct of .Inks Ferry ..... 823 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Life at Head-quarters. — The Parades on the Place d'Armes. — Von Moltke in Versailles. 
— King William's Daily Labors. — Bismarck's Habits. — The General Staff. — The 
Hotel des Reservoirs. — A Journey around Besieged Paris. — The Story of Mont 
Valerien. ■ -Maisons Laffitte in War Time. — Getting under Fire. — The French 
and German Pickets. — In the Foremost Investment Fines. — Montmorency. — The 
Fight near Enghien. — Saint Gratien. — The Day before Champigny . . . . 329 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

The Period of Despair. — The Final Effort. — The Great Sortie. — Champigny. — The 
Fight at Villiers. — Ducrot and his Disaster. — Valorous Conduct of the French. — 
The News of the Defeat of the Loire Army 338 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Panoramic View of the German Investment Lines. — Margency. — Gonesse. — Chelles. — 
The Various ( !orps and their Appearance. — Pictures from Versailles during the Occu- 
pation. — The Snow. — The Landwehrsmen. — The Christmas Festivities . . . :U7 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

The Point of View. — The Campaign in the South. — The Phantom Mobile. — New Year's 
Day. — Scene at the 1 'a I ace. — The Bombardment of Paris. — Between the Fires. — In 
Front of Fort Issy. — In the Batteries. — Coronation of King William of Prussians 
Emperor of Germany at Versailles .......... 35G 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Bourbaki and Belfort. — The Final Sortie of the French. - Montretout. — The Panic in 

Versailles. — The Treaty for Peace. — The End of the Siege of Paris. . . . 300 

CHAPTER XL. 

personal Reminiscences of the Close of the Siege. — The " Neutral Zone." — Wonders 
and Comicalities. — Through the Park at St. Cloud. — The Crown Prince's Redoubt. 
— Starving Parisians. — The Hungry Faces. — A Hundred People following a Hare . 370 

CHAPTER XLI. 

A Great Historic ( Occasion. — The Assembly at Bordeaux. —Thiers in his New R6le. — A 
Political Tragedy in the Theatre de la Comedic. — The Protest of the Alsatians. — 
The Pinal Impeachment of the Empire. — A Strange Scene. — Louis Blanc, Victor 
Hugo, and the ( Ither Exiles. — The Votes for Peace. — A Stern Renunciation. — The 
Mavor of Strasbourg Dies of a Broken Heart 384 



CONTEXTS. 



PAOB 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Garibaldi ami his Role. — ■ New Italy. — The Upgrowth of her Nationality. — Causes that 

Hindered it and Conduced to it. — The Influence of Napoleon III. — His Fatal Mistake \ 

in Counselling the Alliance of Prussia and Italy. — Downfall of the Old French 
Monarchical Policy. — The Hesitation of France. — Occupation of Rome by the Italian 
Government. — The Pontifical Zouaves. ......... 396 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

The Great Pier between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. — Brindisi and Naples. — 
The Revival of Commerce. — Industrial Exhibitions. — Universal Progress. — The 
Struggle between Church and State. — Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel. — The High 
Priest of European Conservatism. — The " Non Possnrnus "of the Vatican. — Familiar 
Traits of Victor Emmanuel 403 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

The Pope at the Vatican. — The Daily Life of Leo XIII. — Its Picturesque, Spiritual, and % 
Political Aspects. — The Continuance of the War between the Vatican and the Quiri- 
nal. — The Aims and Ambitions of the Catholic Party in Italy. — Evolution or Revo- 
lution. — Prophecies of the Catholics. — Unredeemed Italy 414 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The German Parade on Longchamps. — The Triumphal Entry into Paris. — Shadows of Civil 
War. — Outbreak of " La Commune." — The Greatest Insurrection of Modern Times. 

— Its Cause and its Hopes. — The Assassination of the Generals. — The First Fights. 

— The Manifestation of the " Friends of Order " 425 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

Decrees of The Commune. — The First Important Battle. — Flourens Loses his Life. — 
Notes on Communal Journalism. — The Burning of the Guillotine. — -Great Funerals. 

— An Artillery Duel. — An Astonishing Spectacle ....... 437 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

Pictures of The Commune. — General Cluseret. — The Hostages. — A Visit to the ( 'ommunal 
Ministry of Public Instruction. — The Armistice. — Touching Incidents of the Fratri- 
cidal Struggle 443 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Dombrowski in the Saddle. — The Foreign Chiefs of the Commune. — General Cluseret. — 
His Arrest. — Delescluze. — A Despairing Revolutionist. — Rossel. — Bergeret. — The 
Declamatory Period. — The Combat at the Southern Forts. — -A Hot Corner Under 
Shell Fire. — The Women of the Commune 454 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

The Commune Suppresses the Conservative Journals. — Insincere Professions of Liberal- 
ism. —The Pere Ducheue. — The Unroofing of M. Thiers's House. —The Commu- 
nistic Ideal of Society. — Invasion of the Convents. — Reminiscences of Auber the 
Composer. — His Death. — The Fall of the Vendome Column. — The Communists 
Rejoice over the Wreck of Imperial Splendor. — Measures against Social Vices . . 4G3 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L. 

The Narrow Escape from a Reign of Terror. — The Men who Composed the Communal 
Councils. — The Beginningof the End. — The Entering of the Regular Troops. - The 
Tocsin. — The Night Alarm +72 

CHAPTER LI. 

Street Fighting as a Science. — The Barricades. — A Rusede Guerre.- — Looking down on a 
Battle. — The Burning of the Hue Royale. — The Defence of Montmartre. — Genera! 
Dombrowski's Death ............. 478 

CHAPTER LII. 

A Nightof Fires. — Tin- Petroleuses. - — ■ The Execution of Women. — Paris in Flames . 486 

CHAPTER LIII. 

The New Fight of The Bastille. — The Hotel de Ville. —The Picturesque and Dramatic 

Episodes of the Great Battles 49'.) 

CHAPTER LIV. 

The Retreat from the Chateau d'Eau. — Ruins of the Hotel de Ville. — The Burning of 
Important Papers. — Piquet. — The Third Period of the Great Seven Days' Fight. — 
At the Buttes Chaumont 504 

CHAPTER LV. 

Concessions of M. Thiers. — The Vindictiveness of the Middle Classes. — Massacre of the 
Prisoners. — English Comments on the Seven Days' Fight. — Last Moments of the 
Insurrectionists. — Testimonies of Eye-witnesses. — Statistics of the Slaughter. — A 
Curious Photograph. — Out of Storm into Calm ........ 512 

CHAPTER I. VI. 

After Storm. Calm — London and Paris. — Points of Resemblance and of Difference. — 

London and Paris Cockneys. — Old London. — Contrasts in Manners, I? I and Drink. 

— Stimla\ in the Two Capitals. — Mutual Respect and Comical Concealment of It . 519 

CHAPTER LVII. 

The Germans at Dieppe. — The English Channel. — An Effective Fortification. — The 
"Precious Isle set in the Silver Sea." — The North Sea ('oast. — English Seaside 
Resorts. — The White Cliffs of England. — The Great Commercial Highway. — George 
Peahody at Portsmouth ............. 527 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

England's "Silent Highway." — The Sources of her Greatness. — Her Protection of her 
Trade. — Woolwich the Mighty. — Greenwich and its History. — The Procession of 
Commerce. — London's Port. — The Hocks and their Revenues. — Loudon Bridge. — 
Dore in London .............. 533 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER LIX. 



Up River. — The Historic Thames. — The University Races. — Oxford and Cambridge. — 
The Great Race of 18<i9. — Harvard vs. Oxford. — Putney. — Wimbledon. — Hammer- 
smith. — Mortlake. — ■ Thames Tactics. — A Reminiscence of Charles Dickens. — His 
Powers as an After-Dinner Speaker 539 



CHAPTER LX. 

Richmond and its Romance. — Richmond Hill. — The " Star and Garter." — The Richmond 
Theatre. — The Thames Valley. — Twickenham. — The Orleans Exiles and their 
English Home. — Strawberry Hill. — Hampton Court. — Wolsey and Cromwell. — The 
Royal Residence. — Windsor and its Origin ........ 546 



CHAPTER LXI. 

English Royalty. — The Court. — Memorials of Windsor. — St. George's Chapel. — The 
Park at Windsor. — The Royal Palaces. — Drawing-Rooms at Buckingham Palace. — 
Memorials of Buckingham Palace . .......... 552 



CHAPTER LXII. 

St. James's Palace.- — The Story of Kensington. — Its Gardens. — The Charges which 
Royalty Entails. — The Prince of Wales. — An Industrious Heir Apparent. — Marlbo- 
rough House. — Tlie Title of Prince of Wales. — National Views of Allowances to 
Royal Personages. — Sandringham 558 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

Fortunes and Incomes of Members df the English Royal Family. — Ancient and Hereditary 
Pensions. — The Invisible Court. — Its Functionaries. — Precedency. — The Aristo- 
cratic Element in the House of Commons ......... 566 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

The Parliament Palace. — History and Tradition. — The New Home of the Plutocrats. — 
The Victoria Tower. — Westminster Hall. — The House of Lords. — Procedure in the 
Hereditary Chamber. — The Force of Inertia. — Parliamentary Calm . . . . 572 



CHAPTER LXV. 

The Irish Members. — The House of Commons. — The Speaker. — The Peers and theCre- 
ation of New Peers. — The Passion for the Possession of Land. — An Active Session. 
— Procedure. — Bringing in Bills .......... 579 



CHAPTER LXV I. 

The Treasury Whip. — Parliamentary Forms. — Oddities of the House of Commons. — 
Authority of the Speaker. — The Home Rule Members. — Irishmen in London. — 
Anomalies of English Representation. — "Reform." — The Reconstruction of Lon- 
don's Municipal Government ........... 585 



12 CONTENTS. 



CHARTER LXVII. 

The Evolution towards Democracy. — Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. — English 
Directness and Plainness of Speech. — Lord Hartington. — Mr. Labouchere. — Eng- 
lish Sources of Revenue. — The Land Tax. — How it is Evaded. — Free Trade in 
Land. — Taxing the Privileged Classes. — The Corning Struggle .... 591 



CHAPTER LXVII I. 

Public and Popular Speakers. — Spurgeon in his Tabernacle. — The Temperance 
Question. — The Financial Reform League. — Facts for Rich and Poor. — Bradlaugh 
in the Hall of Science. — Republican Meeting in Trafalgar Square — Gladstone at 
a Funeral. — "Oh! how Dreadful !" — Public Meetings in England. — The Lord 
Mayor of London. — Banquets at the Mansion-House. — The City Companies. — 
"Lord Mayor's Day." — The Procession 598 



CHAPTER LXIX. 

"The City." — The Daily Pilgrimage to It. — Exact Limits of the City District. — Demo- 
lition of Temple Bar. — The Griffin. — Fleet Street. — Chaucer's Battle in this Famous 
Avenue. —The Newspaper Region. — The Temple. — The Inns. — The Law Students. 

— St. Paul's and its Neighborhood. — The Crypt in St. Paul's. — The Publisher's 
Haunts. —The Bank. — Lombard Street. — Christ's Hospital. — The "Times" . 609 

CHAPTER LXX. 

The Smoke and Dirt of London. — Temperature. — Poor People and Dirty People. — 
The London Season. — What it Is, and What it Means. —The Races. — The Derby. 

— Going Down to Epsom. —The Return. — Goodwood. — Ascot. — The Royal Acade- 
my. — John Millais. — Sir Frederick Leighton. — Music and Musicians . . . 619 

CHAPTER LXX I. 

Queen's Weather. — The Coaching Meets. — The Flower Shows. — Simplicity of English 
Manners. — Eccentricity and Excellence. — Foreigners and English Society. — The 
London Theatres. — Ellen Terry. — Mr. Wilson Barrett. — English Comedy Writers. 

— In the Parks. — Rotten Low. — Some Noble Houses in London. — A Town of Men. 

— Political Influence. — The Clubs 628 

CHAPTER LXXII. 

The Strand. — A Historic Avenue. — The City ami Country Types. — English Love for 
Nature. — The Fanner and His Troubles. — Rural Beauty in Warwickshire and 
Derbyshire. — The Shakespeare Festival in 1879. — Stratford. — Birmingham, the 
••Toy Shop of Europe" 



635 



CHAPTER LXXIII. 

The Lake Country.— The Home of Poets and Essayists. — Scotland. — Glasgow, its 
Commerce and its Antiquities. — The Great Northern Seaport. — Edinburgh and its 
Memorials. — The Home of Burns «42 



CONTENTS. 13 



CHAPTER LXXIV. 



Tagb 



Scotland and Ireland. — The Scotch Highlands. — Scenes of Scott's Stories and Burns's 
Poems. — Balmoral. — Over to Belfast. — The Irish Land League. — Imprisonment 
of Parnell and his Partisans. — The Crimes Act and its Causes. — A. Land League 
Mass Meeting. — The Wild and Savage Peasantry 648 

CHAPTER LXXV. 

Dublin and its Chief Features. — -The Irish Climate. — Trinity College. — 'The Environs 

of the Irish Capital. — The Great Western Gateways, Queenstown and Liverpool . G58 

CHAPTER LXXVI. 

Lord Beaconsfield. — Mr. Gladstone. — -Two Careers Entirely Different in Character, 
Purpose, and Result. — Personal Description of the two Great Premiers. — Imperial 
Policy. — The Eastern Question in 1875. — Mr. Gladstone's Attitude. — -The Slavs 
of the South. — Servia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro. .... 663 

CHAPTER LXXVIE 

A Day with a Voivoda. — An Insurgent Leader. — Among the Rocks. — A Picturesque 

Experience. — Turk and Slav. — -Ljubibratic and his Men ...... o'7."> 

CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

The Montenegrins. — The Inhabitants of the Black Mountain. — An Unconquered 
Race. — Among the Rocks.. — The Implacable Enemies of the Turks. — A Valiant 
Little Army. — -The Montenegrin Women. — -The Old Prince-Bishops of Montenegro, 688 

CHAPTER LXXIX. 

Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. — The Outpost of Russia. — ■ The Montenegrin Capital. — 

Battle with the Turks. - — Legends of Tsernagora 097 

CHAPTER LXXX. 

Danubian Days. — Hungarians and Slavs. — A Turkish Fortress. — The Footprints of 
Trajan. — Orsova the Fair. — Gypsies. — Animals in the East. — Lower Hungary and 
its Peculiar Features. — Wayside Inns along the Danube. — The Harvesters Coming 
Home at Eventide. • — Gypsies at Drenkova. — Through the Iron Gates . . . 702 

CHAPTER LXXXI. 

A Journey through Roumania in War Time. — A Khan. — Its Advantages and Disadvan- 
tages. — Primitive Life of the Villagers. — On the Great Plains. — The Water Wells. 

— The Approaches to Bucharest. — Roumanian Legends. — The Frontier of Europe 

— French Influence in Roumania. — Bucharest and New Orleans .... 716 

CHAPTER LXXXII. 

Notes on Bucharest. — Streets and Street Types. — The AVallachian Soldiers. — Con- 
scripted Peasantry. — Roumanian Independence. — Priests and Churches . . . 723 



14 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER LXXXIII. 

The Garden of Hercstrou. — Gypsy Music. — Roumanian Amusements. — Prince Gorts- 
chakoff at Bucharest. — General Ignatieff. — Roumanian Houses. — Ploiesei. — A 
Funeral in Roumania. — A Bit of History. — A Libera] Constitution. — King Charles. 
— The Upgrowth of Literature 730 

CHAPTER LXXXIV. 

The Early Roumanians — The Language. — Greek Plays. — Agriculture. — The Minor 
Towns of Roumania. — Jassy. — On the Bessarabian Frontier. — Galatz. — National 
Manners. — Roumanian Monasteries .......... 739 



CHAPTER LXXXV. 

With the Russians in Bulgaria. — On the Danube. — Simnitza. — The Extemporaneous 
Imperial Head-quarters. — The Early Campaign in Bulgaria. — Singing of the Rus- 
sian Troops. — Sistova. — -Bulgarian Men. — The Farmers. — Manners of the Russian 
Army Officers. — The Grand Duke Nicholas. — The Elder Skobeleff. — The Russian 
Emperor in the Field 748 

CHAPTER LXXXVI. 

General Radetzky. ■ — -Russians on the March.- — -Infantry Men. — Cossacks. — Dragimiroff. 

— In Camp. — Reception of the Liberating Russians by the Bulgarians. — Enthusiasm 
of the Women and Children. — Welcome by the Monks and Priests. — The Defile 
beside the Yantra. —The Arrival atTirnova. — Triumphal Procession. —The Grand 
Duke Nicholas in Church. — The Picturesque City on the Yantra. — The Greek Ladies. 

— Fugitives from Eski Zaghra . 756 

CHAPTER LXXXVII. 

Previous Insurrection in Bulgaria. — A Retrospect. — Servia's Aid to Bulgaria. — ■ Russian 
Agents. — The Triple Alliance. — Rustchuk, its Defence. — Turkish Transports. — 
The Road to the Balkans. — Gabrova. — -Turkish Time.- — -Bulgarian Schools and 
their Varying Fortunes. — Renegades. — -The Passes of the Balkans. — Prince Tser- 
teleff. — The ShipkaPass. — Mount St. Nicholas. — Suleiman Pasha and Radetzky . 763 



CHAPTER LXXXV II I. 

The Mutilation of the Russian Wounded. — A Convent of Women near Gabrova, and 
Bulgarian Monasteries.— Through the Balkans. — Kezanlik. — -Rose Culture and the 

E Gardens. — Eski Zaghra and the Massacre. — The Malice of Suleiman Pasha. 

— The Vengeance of the Agas. —The Bulgarian Army. —The National Life of the 
Bulgarians ............... 771 



CHAPTER LXXXIX. 

Plevna and its Influence on the Russian Campaign. — The Roumanians. — Their Valor 
in the Field. — Osman Pasha. ■ — The Despair of Skobeleff. — Across the Balkans. — 
The Descent upon Constantinople. — Hostility of England to Russian Designs. — 
The Berlin Congress. — Its Result. — The Partition of South-eastern Europe . . 779 



CONTENTS. 15 



CHAFrER XC. 

Munich in its Stony Plain by the Isar. — The Cold Greek Architecture of the Bavarian 
Capital. —The Monarchs of Bavaria. — The Present King Louis. — An Eccentric 
Sovereign. — Wagner and Bayreuth. — Gambrinus in Munich 792 

CHAPTER XCI. 

The Passion-Play at Ober-Ammergau. — The Theatre of the Passion. — Old Miracle 
Plays. — The Chorus at Ober-Ammergau. — Bavarian Wood-carvers as Actors. — 
The Personator of the Saviour. — Caiaphas. — The Figures of Peter and Judas. — 
The Women Interpreters of the Passion. — The Departure from Bethany, and the 
Last Supper. — Comments of a Distinguished American Actor. — The Scourging and 
the Crown of Thorns. — The Despair of Judas. — Effective Portrayal of the Judg- 
ment and Crucifixion. — A Beautiful, Holy, and Noble Dramatic Sketch of the Most 
Wonderful Life and Death 796 

CHAPTER XCII. 

Vienna, where the East meets the West. — The Emperor of Austria. — His Simple Life. 

— The Slavs and Hungarians. — Berlin and Bismarck. — The Aged German Emperor. 

— Startling Progress of German Industry. — The Thrones of the North. — Nihilism 
and Socialism. — ■ Colonial Schemes. — Possible Absorption of the Small Countries 

of Europe .812 

CHAPTER XCIII. 

The Storm of Europe Diverted into Africa. — How Great Britain was Drawn into 
Egyptian Affairs. — The Revolt of Arabi. — Rise of El Mahdi. — Gordon to the 
Rescue. — The Long Siege of Khartoum. — Fall of the Soudanese Stronghold and 
Reported Death of Gordon. — The Recall of Wolseley 821 

CHAPTER XCIV. 

The Death of Victor Hugo. — The Greatest European Man of Letters since Goethe.— 
Napoleon III. 's Irreconcilable Foe. — His Obsequies. — The Pantheon Secularized. 

— In State Beneath the Arch of Triumph. —A Vast Procession. —The Demon- 
stration of the French People 836 

CHAPTER XCV. 

Laborers for Peace. — -The New Territories given to European Powers by the Congo 
Conference. — Impossibility of Permanent Peace. —Believers in Arbitration. — M. 
De Lesseps and Mr. Stanley. — The United States of Europe. — Victor Hugo's 
Dream. — Republican Sentiment. — The Strengthening of the French Republic. — 
Will Storm and Calm Forever Alternate in Europe? 842 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Imperial Family ...... 

Napoleon III.'s Guests in the Champ de Mars Pavilion 
The French Emperor and Empress at Compiegne . 
Episode of the Coup d'Etat ..... 

A Parisian Journalist in Prison .... 

Proclaiming the Spanish Republic . 

The Escurial, near Madrid ..... 

Fighting at a Barricade in Valencia 
Mountaineers Going Home after the Siege . 
Wedding of Alfonso XII. ..... 

Castelar at Home ....... 

Bull-fight before the King and Queen 

'['lie Bull has the best of it 

Alcazar ami Walls of Toledo ..... 

The Puerta del Sol 

A Patio in Seville ....... 

Beggars at the Cathedral Door .... 

Tha Murder of Victor Noir ..... 

Rochefort and the Working-men ridden down 

Gambetta in the Baudin Prosecution 

Tlie Speech from the Throne .... 

Thiers in the Tribune ...... 

The Man of Destiny on the Tuileries Terrace 
Police breaking up a Republican Meeting 
Dispersing a Parisian Riot ..... 

Head-quarters of Napoleon at Chalons . 
The End of the Empire. Assault by Police on Citizei 
The Imperial Police protected by the Republican Gua 
The President of the Corps Legislatif watching the Inv 
Invasion of the Corps Legislatif, Sept. 4, 1S70 

The Flight of the Empress 

Napoleon III. Prisoner at Wilhelmshohe 
French Guard Mobile in the Camp of St. Maur 
Camp of the French Marines at St. Vitry 
Running away from the Siege .... 

The old and New Regime. Republican National Gu 
perial Guard ....... 

Up the Hill at Villiers 

Tlie Priests' Ambulance Corps at the Battle of Champ 
Episode in the Siege of Paris. No more Bread . 
The French Troops abandoning the Plateau at Avron 
Arrest of a Supposed Spy ..... 
The Wall of Buzenval. Episode of the Siegr of Paris 

Garibaldi at Bordeaux 

Victor Hugo at Bordeaux ..... 



in tl 



rd 



rd 



lutin 



le Boulev 



the 



xrd 1 



Ren 



Pagf 
23 
27 
35 
47 
51 
50 
CI 
73 
77 
95 
99 

105 
107 
117 
123 
127 
129 
183 
136 



of tl 



141 
145 
153 
161 
163 
207 
223 
227 
231 
2:3:; 
237 
259 
268 
301 
303 



339 
343 

:;n 
345 
359 
3G7 
3(>9 
?87 
391 



17 



18 



/, fS T Oh' II. A 1 'N 77.'. 1 TIOXS. 



The Last Benediction of Pope Pius IX. . 

Victor Emmanuel and Prince Humbert at the Quirinal . 

Attendants and Officials at the Vatican .... 

Pope Leo XIII. in his Private Cabinet .... 

Tin' Pope receives a Visitor ...... 

Tin' Top of Montmartre, where the Communist Cannon won.' 
Funeral of Charles Hugo ...... 

Communist Troops going to the Front .... 

Thiers and McMahnn meeting at Longchanips 

Death of Flourens 

The Rue Perronet at Neuilly 

Episode of the Commune. Gen. La Cecilia reviewing his 
Terrace at Mendon, occupied by Versailles Troops 
Communist Funeral at Night . ..... 

Episode of the Commune. The Fallen Caesar. The Coin 

Fac-simile of a Title-page 

The Prisoners returning from Germany 
Children of the Communist Prisoners eating Soup with th< 
Se.ne from the Commune. The Barricades of the Rue d 
Burning of the Hotel de Ville ..... 
The Last Placard of the Commune .... 

Sunday Market in Petticoat Lane 

The Scotch Volunteers al Brighton .... 
On the Sands at Brighton ...... 

Types of English Lower Classes 

Guardians of the Tower ...... 

Boat-race on the Thames ...... 

Departure of the Prince of Wales for India . 

Interior of the House of Comi - .... 

Recent Dynamite Explosions at the House of Commons in I 
Mass-Meeting on Trafalgar Square .... 

Lord Mayor's Day. Sailors in Procession 

Dinner with the Lord Mayor ...... 

The Thames, from the Top of St. Paul's. Westminster Ps 
Archbishop Manning preaching Temperance . 

At the Punch and Judy Show 

Saturday Night in Workman's Quarter .... 

Salvation Army 

The Queen's Carriage . 

The Queen conferring the Order of Knighthood 

On the Road to Epsom 

Fox-hunting in England ....... 

Stopping the Hunting 

Deer-stalking in the Highlands 

A Land League Mass-Meeting 

A Familiar Irish Scene 

The Western Gateway. The Landing Stage at Liverpool 

Montenegrins on the Watch 

The Russians crossing the Danube in Front of Sistova . 
Hungarian Types ........ 

Roumanian Types ........ 

Bulgarians defending a Mountain Pass .... 

Episode of the Siege of Plevna 

Signing the Treaty of San Stefano .... 



installed 



roops 



Von. loin 



"orsailles 

\ennes 



Soldie 



ndon 



lee ill the 



Distance 



Page 
409 
411 
417 
418 
419 
427 
429 
433 
435 
43!) 
441 
449 
4.-.:) 
461 
470 
471 
489 
493 
495 
501 
618 
523 
529 
530 
:,3.-. 
538 
543 
564 
7.7;; 



601 
603 
60S 
G07 
608 
611 
613 
ms 
620 
621 
624 
625 
6.".7 
647 
655 
656 
0(!1 
689 
703 



717. 

77.1 
770 
781 
7.S7. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



1!) 



The Berlin Congress ........ 

The Eadziwill Palate, in which the Berlin Congress was held 
Constantinople and the Islands ..... 

Palace of the Sultan at Constantinople .... 

Embarkation of Troops for Egypt 

Departure of Troops for Egypt 

The End of a Romance. Napoleon III. on his Death-bed 



787 
788 
7.S!) 
790 
830 
833 
847 









PORT] 


ai rs. 




Bismarck (Military), 1870 . . . 275 


Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 


667 


Bismarck (Civilian), 1884 






276 


( [eneral Skobeleff .... 


755 


Von Moltke 






::;:i 


Emperor of Austria .... 


S14 


Queen of Italy . 






422 


Emperor William of Germany 


816 


King of Italy 






423 


Emperor of Russia .... 


SIS 


Victor Hugo 






531 


El Mahdi 


823 


Queen Victoria 






r>r.:', 


Gen. C. G. Gordon .... 


825 


Prince of Wales 






501 


Lord Wolseley ... 


S31 


Princess of Wales and Family 




563 


King of Belgium .... 


842 


Right Hon. John Bright, M.P. 




577 


Henry M. Stanley .... 


843 


Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. 




593 


M. Ferdinand De Lesseps 


844 


Robert Browning 




. G34 


King of Spain ..... 


846 


George Eliot .... 




641 


Jules Grevy 


849 


Lord Beaconsfield . 






665 







EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER ONE. 

The Volcanic Shimmer. — Paris in 1867. — The Second Empire at the Height oi" its Glory. — The 
" Crowning of the Edifice." — The Festival of Peace. — The " Prophecy of Evil." — Napoleon 
receives Distinguished Guests. — Attempted Assassination of Alexander the Second. - The Sultan 
in Paris. — The Luxembourg Panic. — The Hidden Forces at Work. 



THE traveller who climbs to the sum- 
mit of Vesuvius on a day wheu the 
great volcano is apparently at perfect 
rest, and at a period wheu no manifesta- 
tions of its wrath are expected, will ob- 
serve, as he looks down into the vast 
bowl of the crater, the delicate shimmer 
caused by rising heat. The transparent 
air is tremulous, and although the scene 
upon which the visitor gazes from this 
strange mountain is one of exquisite 
beauty and tranquillity, he cannot restrain 
the feeling of foreboding, as he thinks 
of the tremor in the atmosphere. It is 
the perpetual menace of the hidden forces, 
ready to break forth, overturning' all the 
barriers interposed between themselves 
and liberty ; and, in the mad rush of their 
escape, likely to transform the smiling 
landscapes, historic villages, and teem- 
ing cities, into a chaos not unlike the 
primal one. 

In Paris, in 1867, the Secoud Empire 
had reached the height of its glory and 
renown. From all corners of the world, 
from the most brilliant Oriental capitals, 
from northern cities, from Asia and from 
America, the chiefs of State and the 
celebrities of the moment came to the 



Queen city to offer their tribute of praise 
and admiration, and to joiu in the cele- 
bration of a festival of peace. To the cas- 
ual observer the beautiful French capital 
in this year of splendor and gayety at first 
.seemed to offer a perfect example of the 
wise results of sound administration and 
willing devotion to the arts of peace ; 
but, in looking attentively, day by day, 
upon the scene, it was easy to discover — 
it was impossible in fact not to see — 
the menacing volcanic shimmer, which 
indicated a coming outbreak of forces too 
long repressed, too certain to break forth 
in wild disaster. 

The Second Empire in Fiance had 
passeil into a proverb. It was no longer 
the fashion to speak of its creation as 
a crime. The passionate pages of 
Kinglake, the stinging denunciations of 
Hugo, were almost considered as partisan 
and ungenerous. The French people 
were condemned, as the punishment for 
their culpable supineuess, day by day to 
hear it said of themselves that they were 
unfit for self-government, and that the 
Empire had been for them an unmixed 
blessing. It impresses one now, half a 
generation after these last brilliant 



22 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



moments of the Second Empire, curi- 
ously, to remember that from the United 
States came a great part of the moral 
support accorded to Napoleon III. : 
not only did he succeed in grouping 
about him potentates, who, fifteen years 
before, had considered him the most 
wretched of parvenus; not only did he 
invite to his Court, and instal in 
his palace of the Tuileries, the Czar 
of all the Russias, and the Sultan of 
Turkey; but he wooed from the ad- 
miring bosoms of the I'aii- Republi- 
cans of the West a homage which they 
would never have paid to a parvenu at. 
home. 

At this particular time the Repub- 
licans in France were half inclined to 
lower their bucklers for a while, and to 
pause in their attacks upon the govern- 
ment which they had so long detested, 
irresolute as they were in presence of 
the numerous experiments and reforms 
so loudly announced by the Imperial 
agents. The year of the great " Expo- 
sition" was ushered in with a. wonderful 
flourish of trumpets by the Imperial 
ministry. It was said and printed, for 
the first time since the i-uup d'Etat, that 
the hour for a cessation of repressive 
measures had arrived ; that the long 
period of personal government, rendered 
necessary by the so-called anarchy of 
1848, had come to an end. The 
"crowning of the edifice," as the 
political jargon of the moment had it, 
was soon to take place. If one could 
credit the assertions of all who were 
interested in the support of the Imperial 
dynasty in France 1 , the one wish of the 
Emperor was to give with liberal hand 
as much freedom to his long-oppressed 
people as they could conveniently digest. 
He and his were to be the judges of the 
quantities of liberty to be dispensed, 
and they confidently invited the judg- 



ment of Europe upon their wisdom in 
taking off some few of the screws. 

Each foreign Slate vied with the other 
in its endeavors to be agreeable and 
flattering to the Empire. A Parisian 
was perhaps pardonable at this time for 
his supposition that Paris was the sun 
around which the society of the world 
revolved. Paris fashions, Paris comic 
music, and Parisian bric-a-brac, were 
famous throughout Europe, and had 
made their way into the remotest 
regions of Asia, Africa, and America. 
It is true, that when one turned to the 
soberer domains of literature and high 
art, it was found that (lie French Empire 
had fostered (he production of little or 
nothing within them. The great artists 
wen' not to be found at I he Court. 
They were voluntary or involuntary 
exiles. The theatre had become so 
frivolous that it was the scandal of 
Europe, and among the few painters of 
eminence who basked in the Imperial 
sunshine were many who did not hesi- 
tate to satirize, in the most bitter man- 
ner, the regime under which they lived. 
The social corruption had reached such 
a height, that it could be paralleled 
only by the corruption which was no 
longer concealed in politics. Paris was 
filled with a throng of adventurers, or 
newly enriched people, aristocratic in 
income, though not in breeding. They 
came from everywhere, and at the first 
whiff of smoke of the war in 1S70 they 
disappeared like demons in a pantomime. 
Few of them have returned. They 
seemed to belong to the especial epoch 
which closed with the fall of the Empire ; 
to have had their day as certain Hies 
have theirs, and at its close to have 
finished their existence. 

However various might have been the 
judgments passed upon the Empire and 
the Emperor, there was no variance of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



23 



opinion as to the Exposition. It was it had really lost by the coup d'Etat; and 
a grand festival of art and industry, it kept up this policy faithfully until it 
upon which the Imperial party had spent was no longer of any service. 



- 






y 







1 \ ^5C ^ 






THK IMPERIAL FAMILY. 

much time and labor. The Empire The Exposition of 18(57 was imagined 

thoroughly understood the science of purely as a diversion. In 18G5 the 

diversions. It began by giving the Empire had already begun to decline, 

public splendid shows, military reviews, The formidable Republican Opposition 

and the glitter of foreign expeditious, grouped against it as long ago as l.s.">7 

hoping to divert its attention from what had at last become extremely powerful, 



24 EUROPE r.V STORM AND CALM. 

and in 1804 and 1865 was decidedly in Schleswig-Holsteiu, and the brisk and 
aggressive. This opposition was led by astounding campaign which culminated 
politicians of the experience and impor- in the defeat of Austria at Sadowa in 
tance of Thiers, Berryer, Lanjuinais, L8GG, had one ji>t shaken French pres- 
Jules Favre, Ernest Picard, Jules Simon, tige ; but Napoleon III. knew better. 
Garnier-Pages, and Pelletan. Gam- He was wiser than the people whom he 
betta's voice had not yet been heard had grouped around him. The insin- 
outsidc the cafes of the Latin Quarter, cere, the corrupt, persisted in their 
or the narrow boundaries of the court- theory that France would only have 
room. Emile Ollivier was a prominent to put forth an atom of her ancient 
figure in this opposition to the govern- strength to maintain her historic influ- 
ment and the majority in the Chamber, ence. and to reduce to their proper pro- 
He, like one or two other politicians portions the newly arisen pretensions of 
who were Republican in name, listened Prussia. In the long years of his cap- 
to the specious promises of the Imperi- tivity the Emperor had made careful 
alists, and allowed himself to be won studies in social and political science, 
over to their cause of pretended liberal and he doubtless realized that the time 
reform. Napoleon had saiil that " the had come for the unification of the ho- 
Empirc was peace," at the outset of his mogeneous peoples in the numerous 
Imperial career; hut. he had until this States of Germany. S>o, too, it is fair 
year's first mouths been contradicting to suppose that he foresaw Italian 
himself by maintaining, against even unification; and as both these were, 
the opinion of the more enlightened of from the selfish political stand-point, 
his own party, the shattered remnants dangers and menaces to thi' greatness 
of the French expedition in Mexico, and of Fiance, perhaps he dreamed of sud- 
was daily expecting to hear news of the deiily checking them. lie that as it 
disaster which could no longer be avoided may, the Exposition period was grate- 
there. The immense and cordial wel- fully recognized by all nations as a 
come' accorded to the Exhibition when it, breathing-space in a time of storm 
opened, in the spring of 18G7, was a upon which Europe had entered; and 
veritable godsend to the Empire. It none wen- more grateful in their recog 
undoubtedly put, hack the clock of fate nitiou than the Prussians, who had fully 
by many hours. believed that Prance would not, submit 

Put, the clock of fate was not lo be quietly to the results of Sadowa,. 
stopped, nor yet cracked or broken. It, So Europeans and Americans alike 

went on with remorseless " tick," and it forgot, or wilfully ignored, the volcanic 

n:h with greater vexation and restless- shimmer, and united in the grand fes- 

ness than he hail manifested at any tival of pleasure, feasting the senses, 

previous time in his career that the and most, of all the attention, upon the 

Emperor begau his large and splendid wonders spread before them in the most 

seiies of festivals, lie had been from beautiful capital of the "Western World. 

his youth too acute an observer of polit- The Imperial commission which directed 

ieal indications not to have perceived the Exhibition did its work with skill and 

that, the position of Prance in Europe energy, and tilled the Champ de Mars 

had greatly changed. It was the fash- with a grand epitome of European 

ion at his Court to deny that the events material progress. It was remarked 



EUROPE AV STORM AND CALM. 



25 



that Germany had but Little of all indus- 
trial character to show, and the sprightly 
chroniclers for the small journals of the 
boulevard expended their wit upon the 
mammoth cannon which tilled the (un- 
man section of the Exhibition Palace, 
little realizing that a few years after- 
wards similar cannon would frown upon 
Paris from the hills environing her. In 
order and arrangement the Exhibition 
was perhaps superior to any of its 
successors, not excepting the mammoth 
one held in Philadelphia in 187G. 

The international craze was just begin- 
ning in 1867. The current of travel 
from America had already begun, and 
European prices had not yet assumed that 
vertiginous upward course which they 
have latterly taken and maintained. 
The trans-Atlantic stranger, with his 
new fortune, found Paris the paradise 
of cheapness and luxury. Ricli Rus- 
sians, innumerable Germans of medium 
fortune, Turks and Austrians, Greeks 
and Hebrews. Scandinavians and Anglo- 
Saxons, nightly thronged the newly 
ornamented boulevards. Such crowds 
have never been seen in Paris since. 
In those days the electric light was 
in its infancy, and few large cities 
had had the courage to make experi- 
ments with it. But Imperial Paris took 
it, used it generously, and perhaps 
hoped that the volcanic shimmer would 
be less perceptible beneath its artificial 
glare. The pageants of the Exhibition 
were very numerous, and some of them 
will be famous in history. Paris was 
filled with crack troops, well drilled, 
well dressed, proud of the duties con- 
stantly given them, and with their 
national vanity yet untarnished by any 
of those sad reverses which they were 
called to suffer a little later. The Im- 
perial Court was at Compiegne, but 
Napoleon first received his royal guests 



at the Tuileries. As these guests ar- 
rived one by one, they were welcomed 
with all the splendors befitting their 
exalted stations. The liberal journals, 
which had indulged in sinister prophe- 
cies that the parvenu Emperor could not 
bring to his side the legitimate sover- 
eigns of Europe, gracefully acknowl- 
edged their error, and joined in the 
general enthusiasm. Napoleon affected 
a slightly democratic demeanor, while 
carefully maintaining with relation to 
his guests all the etiquette to which they 
attached so much importance, and of 
which the Empress Eugenie was always 
such a passionate devotee. 

No doubt the visit of the Emperor 
Alexander II. of Russia would have in 
less dangerous times been productive of 
a certain current of opinion in France 
favorable to the maintenance of the Em- 
pire there. The spectacle of the Czar of 
all the Russias riding in the same car- 
riage with Napoleon III., and accepting 
his hospitality, was not without its weight. 
It seemed as if the man who had so 
long been called an adventurer had at 
last enrolled himself in the society to 
which he had always desired to belong. 

Alexander II. of Kussia had just en- 
tered upon his repressive policy in Poland 
when he made his visit to Paris, and he 
was perhaps a little surprised, on arriv- 
ing in the court-yard of the Tuileries, to 
be saluted with a sonorous "Vive la 
Pelogne, Monsieur!" which came from 
the lips of that stanch republican Mon- 
sieur Floquet, who subsequently became 
one of the chief municipal authorities of 
the French capital. In February of 
1SG7 the Russian Emperor had sup- 
pressed the Polish Council of State, aud 
had given the public instruction of the 
country into the hands of Russian authori- 
ties. This was preliminary to the great 
measure which he took in 18G8, when by 



2(5 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



an ukase he suppressed the Kingdom of 
Poland, and forbade Polish ladies and 
gentlemen to wear their national cos- 
tumes. Infinite precautions were taken 
1>3 T the authorities of the French Empire 
against any attempts upon the lives of 
the visiting sovereigns; but the legions 
of police which swarmed in the city 
were not sufficient to protect the Czar 
Alexander from an attempted assassina- 
tion. I chanced to be close to the Im- 
perial carriage when the fanatic Bere- 
zowski, on the day of the review of the 
Dth of June in the Bois de Boulogne, fired 
a pistol at Alexander's head. There was 
an immense press of people returning 
from the review, and much crowding and 
confusion were caused by the sudden 
arrival of a great body of cavalry which 
was making its way at a vigorous trot out 
of the wood. In common with thou- 
sands of others I was pressed forward 
to the main avenue, along which the Em- 
peror <>f Russia was just returning. I 
heard a pistol shot, and then an im- 
mense "Ah!" such as only a Latin 
crowd can utter; and next, much to my 
surprise, I saw the carriage tilled with 
ugly-looking fellows in black clothes, who 
were doubtless the police agents, with 
which the crowds were plentifully inter- 
spersed. 

There was no time during the clos- 
ing days of the Second Empire when 
one could feel that in a miscellaneous 
assembly of a. dozen persons, unless 
it, was by invitation in a private par- 
lor, there would not lie one or two 
police spies. These spies were found 
everywhere. They infested the cafes. 
They offered for sale opera-glasses and 
trifling trinkets, ami peered impertinently 
into travellers' faces. They assumed 
every conceivable disguise, and fre- 
quently made report on matters which 
were not of the slightest consequence, 



now and then seriously embarrassing 
innocent strangers, whose notions of 
free speech were brought from a less 
exhausted atmosphere. If two people 

began a discussion on the street the 
third man who was sure to come up and 
listen was either a sergent de ville, as the 
policemen were called in those days, or 
was a private detective. Any group of 
three, four, or live persons, standing to 
discuss and appearing to lie deeply in- 
terested in conversation in any street 
door-way of publicbuilding or in a square, 
was immediately requested to " move 
on." Any refusal to obey would have 
been followed by arrest, and any offence 
against the Imperial notions of order 
was qualified as criminal. 

The would-be assassin of the Emperor 
of Russia was insane with passion, or he 
would not have dreamed of attempting 
the life of a. sovereign in a town so filled 
with private spies and police-officers as 
Paris. The Sultan of Turkey, Abdul 
Aziz, who afterwards had so tragic an 
end, was highly gratified at the mas- 
terly manner in which he was surrounded 
by a net-work of spies from the moment 
of his arrival to that of his departure. 
He was the most apprehensive, timid 
creature that I remember ever to have 
seen in public. On one occasion he was 
taken through the principal streets in one 
of the great gala carriages of the time of 
Louis XIY T ., and his carriage was sur- 
rounded in the Rue Royale by a crowd 
which was quite crazy with curiosity. 
The Sultan sat cowering in a corner of 
this antique vehicle, sweltering in his 
heavy European uniform, loaded down 
with gold and silver decorations, and 
looking very much more like a criminal 
who had been detected than like the de- 
fender of the faithful and the successor 
of Soliman the Magnificent. 

Among the guests of uote who came 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 



■27 




mw^ 




NAPOLEON III.'S GUESTS IN THE CHAMP DE MAPS PAVILION. 



28 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



to Paris in this gala year were two elderly 
gentlemen of sober mien, who attracted 
more attention than the Czar or the Sul- 
tan, and whose visit was of more vital 
significance than that of the above-men- 
tioned potentates. These two person- 
ages were King William of Prussia, and 
Bismarck, who had left behind him in 
Paris years ago, when he had been sta- 
tioned there as a diplomat, the reputation 
of a brilliant wit and a cynical and gen- 
erally successful wire-puller. The Pari- 
sian rabble made fun of the shining 
helmet and the white eoat which Bismarck 
wore when he mounted his steed to 
attend the review at Longchamps, and 
many pleasantries were indulged in at 
the expense of the venerable Prussian 
king. But the intelligent and cultivated 
classes were careful to make no jokes 
about the Prussians, and improved to 
the utmost their opportunities of cul- 
tivating pleasant relations with them. 
Napoleon and his followers had an 
unbounded confidence in their ability 
to arrange matters. They 7 fancied that, 
with the prestige of the First Empire be- 
hind it, the Second could manage to 

overawe aggression, even tl gli it might 

uot possess the force suddenly to repel 
it. King William and Bismarck were 
carefully entertained at Compiegne, and 
listened with feigned if not with real in- 
terest to the many political combinations 
either proposed to them, or hinted at in 
their presence. The Prussians would 
certainly have been exacting had they 
not approved of the policy of the Im- 
perial party in France, for it was feeble 
enough directly to serve their interests. 
" France," says M. Simon, ■• as a neces- 
sary consequence of the prodigious in- 
crease of power in Prussia, consequent on 
her victory at Sadowa, stepped down 
from the first rank into the second. 

Napoleon had made a fatal error in at- 



tempting to observe the policy set forth 
in the speech in which he abandoned 
Austria to her fate. He said, ' With 
regard to Germany my intention is 
henceforth to observe a policy of neu- 
trality which, without hindering us now 
and then from expressing our sympathies 
Of oni' regrets, leaves us strangers to ques- 
tions in which our interests are not di- 
rectly engaged.' " M. Thiers pointed out, 
in 18GG, the danger of this indifference 
which the Empire desired to manifest. 
He said that it was to be feared that 
Germany would profit by it. Benedetti, 
the ambassador to Berlin, who afterwards 
became so notorious, at the time of the 
declaration of war in 1870, wrote to his 
government that in 18GG the simple 
manifestation of French sympathies 
would have completely checked the prog- 
ress of Bismarck and enabled Austria 
to escape the humiliation which she was 
called on to suffer shortly afterwards. 
M. Simon and many other impartial 
writers on the Imperial policy express 
their opinion that Napoleon III. allowed 
Prussia to aggrandize herself because he 
hoped to be paid in kind. lie had am- 
bitious notions as to Rhenish provinces 
and to Belgium which were never des- 
tined to be realized. 

The hidden forces in the volcanic 
bosom gave one ominous rumble in 1867. 
The Empire had just been obliged to 
announce the disastrous end of the Mex- 
ican expedition. It did not (.'are to 
cuter into a. struggle with the United 
States, which at that moment had upon 
the Mexican frontier an army large 
enough to cope with any force that 
Fiance could muster. In presence of 
the Mexican failure, and under pres- 
sure of the keen criticisms which the 
directors of French policy received for 
the danger in which they had left Maxi- 
milian, Napoleon III. looked desperately 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



2<l 



about him for some new project likely 
to be popular, and was led, almost be- 
fore lie knew it, into imminent danger 
of war with flushed and victorious Ger- 
many. He had again begun his cam- 
paign in favor of the annexation of 
Belgium, and was secretly working it 
out before the early summer of 18G7. 
It was, I fancy, during the visit of the 
numerous sovereigns that he at last got 
full light ou the question of a rectifica- 
tion of French frontiers along the Rhine. 
He found that this was impossible in a 
pacific manner, and so he began negotia- 
tions with the King of Holland, who 
was the Grand Duke of the Duchy of 
Luxembourg, to obtain from him for a 
lixed price the cession of that duchy. 
This was speedily noised abroad, and 
created the most intense excitement in 
Germany, especially in Prussia. There 
was a veritable alarm throughout France 
and Germany. For twenty days it 
seemed as if the year of peace festivals 
might be interrupted by a long and 
bloody war. To-day it seems impossible 
that the French Empire should not have 
learned, from the manner in which it was 
treated by Germany on that occasion, its 
own weakness, and the poor opinion 
that its antagonists had of it. Hut so 
much pains had been taken to prevent 
anything like free discussions in the 
Chambers that the truth did not come to 
the surface, and the public was informed 
by the Minister of Public' Affairs that 
the King of Holland, as Grand Duke of 
Luxembourg, and not the Imperial gov- 
ernment of France, had raised the Lux- 
embourg question, and that (lie Duchy 
would not be ceded to Fiance, because 
of conditions which seemed unlikely to 
be fulfilled. As a clever French writer 
has said, the public learned, from the 
reading of debates on the question in 
foreign parliaments, that the French 



nation was not to have a war with Ger- 
many simply because it was not to get 
the Luxembourg Duchy. When this hope 
vanished in smoke Napoleon III. must 
have been convinced that be would get 
nothing in exchange for his abstention 
from interference with Prussia in carry- 
ing out her elaborate scheme for her 
aggrandizement of united Germany. 

When the Luxembourg excitement had 
died away, and the news of Maximil- 
ian's execution at Queretaro had ar 
rived, the Imperial party did not make 
an}" new professions of a desire to accord 
liberties to the people. But the round 
of festivities went on. The Exposition 
was like a great international city where 
all that was brightest and most beautiful 
from fifty different countries met daily. 
There were French, and Anglo-Saxon, 
and Dutch, and Viennese, and North 
German, and Spanish, and Danish, and 
Swedish and Russian restaurants, and 
English bars. There were parks filled 
with imitations of Oriental palaces, 
Chinese pavilions, Turkish bazaars, and, 
in rather incongruous juxtaposition, Ba- 
varian breweries. There were nob' 
galleries of the history of labor; line 
collections of works of art ; a grand ex- 
hibit of machinery and of materials 
suitable for application to the liberal 
arts ; and there was a great park divided 
into four quarters, the French and Bel- 
gian, German, English, and Oriental. 
Here were German and Scandinavian 
houses, Russian cabins, and Cossack 
teuts, Greek churches and Turkish 
mosques. Indian pagodas ami Siamese 
palaces, and buildings tilled with models 
of everything from the Roman cata- 
combs to the sanitary collect ions of 
the American civil war. By night, in 
the soft summer climate of northern 
France, a visit to the Exhibition was 
like a trip to fairy-land. The music, of 



30 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



Strauss and Gungl filled the air. There 
was everything which could charm the 
eye, and the visitor who journeyed 
homeward along the silent, streets of 
the capital late at night after a prome- 
nade through the Exhibition found it 
difficult to persuade himself that he was 
living under a despotic government, 
and one which the people of the country 



were anxious to throw off. He forgot, 
amid the varied enchantments of Paris, 
in contemplating the vast municipal im- 
provements, in reading the announce- 
ments of the opening of new parks and 
gardens, and the schemes for an im- 
proved condition of the working-class, 
— he forgot the volcanic shimmer. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



31 



CHAPTER TWO. 

The Imperial Court at Compiegne. — An Historic City. — Luxury and Splendor. — Napoleon III. '3 
Courtship. — The Counlcss of Montijo. — What an Imperial Hunting-Party Cost. — Aping the 

First Empire. — The Imperial Family. — Parvenus and Princes. — The Programme of the Season 
at Compiegne. — How the Guests were Received. — The Imperial Theatre. — What the People 
Paid for. — Prince Napoleon. — Princess Clothilde. 



IN this splendid year, Compiegne, as 
well as Palis, was at the height of 
its magnificence. Compiegne might al- 
most have been called a second French 
capital, for from the earl)' days of the 
Second Empire it had been the favorite 
resort of the adroit and brilliant Empress, 
and it was there that many of the events 
most important in the history of the Em- 
pire had their origin. The pretty and 
interesting old town, on the borders of 
the noble wood, had for many centuries 
been a favorite resort for French sov- 
ereigns. The local historians even say 
that it won the affection of Clovis ; but, 
without going back so far as this ancient 
sovereign, we find in French histoiy 
plenty of romance, tragedy, and comedy r 
connected with Compiegue. The valor 
of the inhabitants of the town decided 
the victory of Bovines, which is one of 
the most glorious in French annals. The 
"Maiden's Tower," a part of the ruin of 
the Porte du Vieux Pont, commemorates 
the heroic maid of Orleans, who was 
taken near that place, in Compiegne, on 
the 24th of May, 1430. There is an in- 
scription, scarcely complimentary to the 
English, on this door, and in it occurs 
the famous line so often quoted by French 
editors when they have found the policy 
of France antagonized by England, — 

" Tous ceux-la d'Albion u'ont fait le bien 
jamais." 



Joan of Arc was taken by an archer 
of Picardy, disarmed and carried to the 
head-quarters of Magny, where she was 
literally sold at auction. She was at 
last bought by John of Luxembourg, 
who sold her to the English for 10,000 
livres (francs) cash, and a pension of 
300 livres. Compiegne is also full of 
memories of La Valliere, Madame Ue 
Montcspan, and Louis the Well-Beloved, 
who had a nest for his famous Pompa- 
dour in the shades of the park. The 
petit chdteau, as it was called, where the 
Pompadour lived, was demolished at the 
time of the great revolution. 

Napoleon I. was very fond of Com- 
piegne, and in the freshness of his devo- 
tion to Maria Louisa constructed there 
the famous " Cradle," copied from that 
of the park at Schoenbrunn. In Louis 
Philippe's day the Court occasionally 
had its seasons of gayety at Compiegue, 
and reviews were hell there, at which 
the young princes, who had been so 
prominent in the conquest of Algeria, 
inspected the troops. It is said that 
Louis Philippe used to drive out to the 
reviews in a huge carryall with a four- 
in-hand, which he was very fond of man- 
aging. At his side was the boy who 
is to-day the Comte l)e Paris, and some- 
times the Queen and the young Duchess 
de Montpensier accompanied him. The 
old King used to drive down the line of 
troops, saluted by cheers. The last of 



32 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

these reviews at Compiegne was held in legitimate leader of French society. This 
is 17. Nothing was more picturesque lady, who played such an important part 
than the multitude of tents, of booths, in the career of Napoleon III., was. ac- 
of merchants and mountebanks, which cording to the Imperialist authorities, de- 
sprang up under the hills of the forest, scended from two noble families of Spain 
on the days preceding the reviews, and and England. Her father, tin 1 Count of 
to which the Parisians Hocked by hun- Montijo, claimed a long descent from 
dreds of thousands. For a short time Spanish noblemen, who were celebrated 
after the Revolution of 1848 the forest in the wars and politics of their native 
was opened to the public, and the grocer, laud, and among them the Count of 
the butcher, and the candlestick-maker, Telia, who got his nobility at the cud of 
popped their nuns at the royal stags and the fifteenth century from Ferdinand and 
the scudding hares, which had hereto- Isabella, for the bravery which lie dis- 
fore been prev for the guns of the no- played before Granada. The mother of 
hilitv alone. Mdlle. de Montijo was a descendant of 
The chase in France has always been a Scotch family, driven out of Scotland 
an aristocratic amusement. The middle at the fall of the Stuarts, and was the 
class seems to have but small liking for daughter of an English business-man 
it; and as the working-people have nev- named Fitz-Patriclc, who was long Brit- 
er been allowed to keep weapons of their ish Consul in Spain, and who seems to 
own, they have naturally acquired but have laid but little stress upon an aristo- 
small skill in shooting. It was but a cratic lineage. 

little time after the coup tVEtat that The Countess of .Montijo and her 

Napoleon III. made his appearance at daughter were well known in London, 

Compiegne, ami began to give hunting- Madrid, and Berlin, where they made 

parlies there, which were soon noted long sojourns before they appeared in 

throughout Europe for their magnificence, France, where their favorite residence 

for the excellence of the banquets, and was Fontainebleau. The beauty of the 

the torch-light fi'tes connected with them, daughter was so remarkable that in 

and for the great numbers of beautiful 1850 and 1851 she was the observed of 

ladies who were gathered at the newly all observers at the fetes of the Elys6e. 

established court. Mdlle. Eugenie de At Compiegne she conducted herself 

Montijo, who was soon to become the with great prudence in the midst of a 

Empress of the French, had been very corrupt Court, where she was sur- 

promiuent in the organization of the fes- rounded with all kinds of jealousy and 

tivities at the Elvsce Palace in Paris, envy; and, when the Emperor came to 

and society soon remarked that she was declare his passion, she referred him 

the leading spirit at Compiegne. The with much dignity and sweetness to her 

first hunting-season under the Empire mother, who she feared would never 

bronchi Mdlle de Montijo and her moth- consent to the union because of the ex- 

er very often before the French public, alted station of the suitor, and because 

The young beauty scandalized the chate- she felt that he ought to make a more 

laines of the neighborhood by galloping brilliant alliance with some one of the 

about with the Emperor at all hours of noble families of Europe. The gossips, 

the day and evening, but no one imag- since the fall of the Empire, say that the 

incd that she was likely to become the Emperor's declaration was brought on 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



33 



by a somewhat comical incident. They 
relate that returning from the chase one 
evening with Millie, tie Montijo, the Em- 
peror ventured to present himself at the 
door of her private room and to linger 
there for a moment ; whereupon he was 
driven out without ceremony, and, the 
story adds, with one or two vigorous 
blows from a riding- whip. This, it was 
said, confirmed his already decided 
opinion as to the unimpeachable virtue 
of the young countess ; and it was not 
long before he talked of marriage. He 
wrote a letter to the mother of the 
adored one, and the good lady, after 
having shown this precious document to 
all her intimate friends, allowed herself 
to be convinced, and the engagement 
was soon announced to the company 
gathered at Compiegne. 

There was a great outpouring of 
scandal as soou as this announcement 
was made. The elder Countess of 
Montijo had the dissatisfaction of see- 
ing her past reviewed without mercy, 
and the Legitimists and other factious of 
the monarchical opposition to the new 
Emperor gave full vent to their spleen 
and their satire. The Prince Napoleon 
was naturally very angry, as it put an 
end to the hopes that he had begun to 
cherish of beiug the legitimate succes- 
sor of Napoleon III. Everywhere the 
coining marriage was alluded to as 
eccentric ; and so wise and careful a 
man as M. Thiers even ventured to have 
his little joke at the Emperor's expense. 
He said : " The Emperor has always 
seemed to me to be a clever man. To- 
day I see that he has plenty of fore- 
sight, for by his marriage he is probably 
reserving for himself the rank of a Span- 
ish Grandee." This little pleasantry 
contained a delicate allusion to the inse- 
curity of the Emperor's position. 

But Napoleon cared little for these 



cynical remarks. lie had some sup- 
porters like M. Dupin, who said boldly 
that the Emperor had done perfectly 
right in engaging himself to marry a 
person who pleased him, and not allow- 
ing himself to be snatched up by some 
German princess with huge feet. When 
Napoleon III. got his council of ministers 
together and announced his projected 
marriage there were numerous objec- 
tions, politely but firmly made. The 
Emperor met them all in the most per- 
emptory fashion, saying, "There arc no 
objections to be made, gentlemen, and 
no discussion is to be begun on this 
matter. The marriage is decided upon, 
and I am decided to carry it out." There 
was a ripple of laughter in the European* 
Courts when the Emperor said, in his 
speech at the Tuilerics, in 1853, that the 
union he was about to contract was not 
exactly in accordance with the con- 
ditions of the old traditional policy, but 
that that was its special advantage. 
" France," he said, " had by its succes- 
sive revolutions separated itself from the 
rest of Europe. A sensible government 
ought to try to get it back into the circle 
of the old monarchies ; but that result, 
according to him, would be more certainly 
brought about by a frank and straightfor- 
ward policy, by loyalty in transactions, 
than by royal alliances, which created a 
false sense of security, and substituted 
family for national interests." 

This sounded very brave, and there 
was a little swagger in the following 
phrase, which forced even Napoleon's 
enemies to admit that he at least had 
the courage of his opinions: "When, 
standing in full view of, ancient Europe, 
one is brought by the force of a new 
principle up to the height of the ancient 
dynasties, it is not by trying to give 
additional age to one's coat of arms, 
or by seeking by enterprise to get into 



34 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



a family of kings, that one makes his 
position there. It is rather in always 
remembering one's origin, in preserving 
one's own character, and in taking 
frankly with regard to Europe the posi- 
tion of a parvenu, which is a glorious 
title when one arrives at power by the 
tree suffrage of a great people." 

After the nuptial ceremony, which took 
place with great pomp at the Cathedral 
of Notre Dame in Paris, the Emperor 
offered to the Duchess de Yicence and 
the Duchess de Lesparre the highest 
places in the household of the Empress; 
lint both these ladies refused to accept 
the honors. This was only one of many 
mortifications which the Imperial couple 
had to sutler for some months after their 
union. The Duke de Bassano, who was 
destined to lie the Emperor's Court cham- 
berlain, at first said that he would take 
good care that his family had no office 
under the Empire. But he was prevailed 
upon, and the Duchess de Bassano soon 
took high position among the ladies of 
the Empress's suite. After a time the 
Emperor rallied round him some of the 
members of the old aristocracy. It was 
not difficult for him to do this, for he 
had the [lower of making senators, and 
of according to the members of the 
Senate sums of 15,000, I'd. ()()(), or 
30,000 francs, as lie pleased. Dukes, 
princes, counts, ami marquises flocked 
around the " Imperial parvenu ," and 
naturally brought their wives and daugh- 
ters both to the Tuileries and to Com- 
piegne. The Comte de Chambord felt 
it his duty to address, from his post of 
exile, a letter to the Legitimist party, 
in which he administered a severe rebuke 
to those of his quondam adherents who 
had allowed themselves to be seduced 
by the brilliant promises of the Empire. 
But this letter did no good, for the sim- 
ple reason that the newspapers were 



ordered not to reproduce it. and so the 
public remained in ignorance of tin; 
Comte de Chambord's protest. 

The Empress seemed to have for her 
chief aim the recstablishment of the 
rules of precedence and the Court cos- 
tumes which had prevailed in the reign 
of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. It is 
even told of her that the Emperor and 
some of his more serious followers had a 
severe .struggle with her on the occasion 
of a grand fancy ball, which was given 
at the Tuileries, to prevent her from 
appealing as a resuscitated Marie An- 
toinette. She flattered herself that she 
resembled that unfortunate sovereign, 
ami was never weary of talking of her. 

Without any desire at this late day to 
criticise the society of Compiegne or the 
Empire, it is difficult to overlook the 
fact that the company was decidedly 
mixed. A recent writer says on this 
subject: " At the advent of the Empire 
all the noted parlors were closed, and 
polities, as in our day. sowed discord 
and disunion everywhere, so that good 
society, whether per force or of its 
choice, yielded place to a new monde, or 
a kind of international demi-monde, 
which had flocked together from the 
four corners of Europe to be merry at 
the Imperial Court. The new society, 
born of the Empire, was indeed most 
strange. In it were found marchion- 
esses, who were journalists; Italian 
princesses, who had been singers at 
Alcazars ; and, from all countries, great 
ladies with regard to whose marriages 
there was something irregular." 

It was the fashion at the close of the 
Empire to say that the Empress was 
responsible for a great part of the social 
demoralization ; but this was unjust. 
She made vigorous efforts at times to 
purge the Court of the disreputable 
personages who hung upon its out- 



KUROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 



35 



skirts, and she was now and then suc- 
cessful. 

The French nation discovered shortly 




after the opening of the first season at 
Compiegne that an Empire was a costly 
luxury. It would be difficult for Repub- 
licans to understand the absolute 
liberty which the Emperor had 
of bestowing money upon his 
favorites, and the license with 
which he lavished the national 
funds upon the amusements of 
the Court. Marshal Magnan, 
who had taken a vigorous part in 
the coup d'Etat, was made grand 
veneur, or the Imperial Master of 
the Hounds, with an annual salary 
of 100,000 francs. This was more 
money than Louis XIV. gave to 
Rohan for the same service. Na- 




THE FKEMJH EMi'ERUl; AND EMPRESS AT COMPIEGNE. 



36 



EUROrE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



poleon treated his favorites with great 
liberality, and this Marshal Magnan, be- 
sides his office at Compiegne, had 40,000 
francs as general-in-ehief of the army of 
Paris; 40,000 francs as a marshal of 
France ; 30,000 francs as senator ; and 
C,000 francs as the perquisites of his 
position in the Legion of Honor. Count 
Edgar Ney, who was also a grand officer 
in the Imperial chase, received 40,000 
francs yearly, and aristocratic gentle- 
men whose only labors during the year 
consisted in keeping the packs of hounds 
well furnished, in buying horses in 
England or in Hungary, were paid 
20,000, 15,000, or 12,000 francs. 
Nearly all these gentlemen were also 
officers in the army, and received sala- 
ries of from 12,000 to 40,000 francs for 
military service. Napoleon gave them 
horses and carriages, free lodgings in all 
the Imperial palaces, and, in fact, so 
heaped honors and splendors upon them 
that the}' would have been base ingrates 
if they had not fully espoused his cause. 
The officers of sport were supposed to 
pass three months of the year at Ram- 
bouillet, three months at St. Germain, 
three months at Fontainebleau, and 
three months at Compiegne, in which 
place they were entitled to lodgings in 
the crown buildings, to firing, lighting, 
washing, etc. The grand veneur even 
had a mansion specially rented for him 
in Paris, and the expense of this was 
paid by the people. 

The Empress spent long mornings in 
designing and adopting costumes for the 
chase. Bottle-green had been the livery 
adopted by the Imperial Court of Napo- 
leon I. ; and so bottle-green was adopted 
by the Imperial Court of Napoleon III. 
But there were among others magnificent 
costumes rich with red velvet striped 
with gold. Everything was regulated in 
the most careful manner. The Emperor 



and Empress wore white feathers in their 
hats, and no one else at Court was al- 
lowed to do so. A special kind of hunt- 
ing- hat was specified for certain days, 
and no frequenter of the Court would 
have dared in the smallest detail to vent- 
ure upon originality, as he or she would 
have immediately incurred the Empress's 
displeasure. It was considered a great 
favof to be authorized to wear a hunting- 
costume without being a member of the 
hunt or of the Emperor's household. The 
chief officers of the crown, the Court 
chamberlain, the master of horse, the 
grand master of ceremonies, the prefects 
of the police, the special grooms of the 
Emperor and Empress, and the ladies 
of the palace and the ladies of the chief 
dignitaries, were all enrolled in this mas- 
culine and feminine hunting-regiment ; 
and he or she who was not a good rider 
had but little chance at Court. All this 
people, in the midst of their sports and 
fantastic promenades in the leafy ave- 
nues of the forest, almost forgot that 
there was such a city as Taris or a great 
nation of thirty-seven or thirty-eight 
millions of striving and suffering work- 
ers. The Emperor had taken possession 
of France as his particular prize, and 
cared as little for the will of the people 
as for the direction of the wind. 

But, although he cherished a supreme 
disdain for the public will and for public 
criticism, he was extremely attentive to 
the remarks of foreign Courts, and con- 
stantly made endeavors to attract to 
Compiegne some representatives of Eu- 
ropean royalty and aristocracy. The 
King of Holland, who was a great ad- 
mirer of the Empress, was one of the 
first sovereigns to come to Compiegne, 
and great was the rejoicing when he ap- 
peared. Afterwards there were numer- 
ous important visits of sovereigns ; and 
amonu; the most noted were those of Vic- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



37 



tor Emanuel of Italy, the Emperor of 
Austria, the Emperor of Russia, the King 
of Prussia, and Prince Bismarck in 18C7, 
and the King of Portugal. 

It was perhaps at the close of the 
Crimean war that the Compiegnes, as 
they were called, were most brilliant. 
Enormous sums of money were spent at 
that time upon the hunting-parties, and 
Lord Stratford Canning, Lord Palmer- 
stou, and other noted Englishmen, were 
quite dazzled, although accustomed to 
luxury at home, by the Imperial displays. 
It is said that when Lord Palmerston 
visited Compiegne, the daily expenses at 
the Court were 45,000 francs. The Prin- 
cess de Metternich, the interesting and 
original wife of the Austrian ambassador, 
was intimately associated with all W\c fetes 
and shows of the Imperial Court. She, 
like the Empress, was foreign to French 
manners ; but she had what the French 
call the (liable au corps, and she was im- 
mensely popular among the jeunesse 
doree, who moved in the upper circles of 
society. Although the conduct of the 
Empress was never for an instant criti- 
cised during her whole reign, she was 
frequently called upon to witness terri- 
ble scandals at Court. 

Compiegne was the fashion. The 
Emperor and Empress arrived there on 
All-Saints-day and left on the evening 
before the opening of the Chambers in 
Paris. When the Court arrived, a bat- 
talion of infantry of the guards came 
also, and there was music in the clear- 
ings in the forest, and all the villas in 
the neighborhood were filled with rich 
foreigners. On the day of the Empe- 
ror's arrival no oue dined at the palace 
with him except the officers of his house- 
hold, who were, as the phrase went, 
" on duty," and the ladies who belonged 
to the train of the Empress. The under- 
prefect, the mayor, and all the officers 



of the garrison, went out to meet the 
Emperor when he arrived at the railway 
station ; and the inspectors of forests, 
the game- keepers, and the hundred 
smaller officials, came to pay their re- 
spects in the evening. 

On the next day the guests began to 
arrive. It was the custom of the Court 
to have five series of invited guests, 
numbering about ninety in each series. 
Persons of distinction in literature, or 
science, or politics, on receiving an 
invitation to Compiegne, understood 
that they were invited for four days, 
without counting the day of arrival or 
that of departure. The special honor 
was to be invited on the 15th of No- 
vember, because that was St. Eugenie's- 
day, and the Empress's f'te. On that 
occasion there was a comedy given by 
amateurs, followed by a grand ball, at 
which all the Court society, and every- 
body, of course, brought costly offerings 
of flowers. The principal functionaries 
of the town and the department, with 
their families, were invited to dinner, 
and the officers of the garrison came in 
a group to offer the Empress a magnifi- 
cent bouquet. 

The Imperial family was quite numer- 
ous, and when the Emperor arrived at 
Compiegne a goodly number of the 
members of his family came with him. 
There was the young and pretty Princess 
Anna Murat ; her brother Prince Joa- 
chim ; the Princess Mathilde, who had at 
first pouted when she had heard of the 
marriage, but who finally grew reconciled 
to it and was later on a very affectionate 
friend of the Empress ; and the little 
Prince Imperial. King Jerome and the 
prince, his son, came rarely to Com- 
piegne. They could not endure the 
Empress, who liked them not, and who 
did not conceal her dislike, and who, 
after the rather dubious exploits of Prince 



38 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Napoleon in the Crimea, made so much 
fun of him that lie cherished a mortal 
hatred for her. The Emperor was peri- 
odically besieged by needy members of 
his family, — needy because of their ex- 
aggerated wauts ; and many a good story 
is told of the manner in which he evaded 
undue exactions on the part of his rela- 
tives. On one occasion Prince Napo- 
leon asked for such an enormous sum 
that the Emperor refused it point-blank, 
saying that as he had already given him 
a capital of 2. 300, 000 francs a year he 
could do nothing more for him. The 
Prince grew furious, and indulged in 
some very strong language, finishing by 
the remark, " There is nothing of the 
Emperor about you." — " Oh, yes, there 
is," answered Napoleon III. without 
moving a muscle of his countenance ; 
"there is his family." This story got 
abroad, and was the delight of Paris for 
many days. 

Prince Napoleon was long deeply at- 
tached to Rachel, the noted actress. 
Their intimacy was quite public, as the 
Prince made no mystery of any of his 
liaisons. In 1858 a certain prince, who 
very likely was not friendly to the Em- 
press, sent one of his carriages, which 
was exactly like those used by the Im- 
perial pair, to Rachel, that she might go 
to Longchamps in it. She accepted this 
delicate attention, and the public, recog- 
nizing the Imperial livery, took Rachel 
for the Empress and hailed her with 
cheers and obsequious bows. When she 
got home the actress said, "It is vei-y 
disagreeable to be taken forthe Empress." 
This pleased Prince Napoleon so much 
that he could not help repeating it as 
some slight revenge for the many occa- 
sions upon which the Empress had ren- 
dered him ridiculous. 

After this little incident a decree was 
published, announcing that the Grand 



Marshal of the palace alone had the right 
to put his servants in the Imperial livery. 
The public called this the " Rachel 
Decree." All the ceremonies of the Im- 
perial Court were regulated in the most 
punctilious fashion. Yet a certain free- 
dom of manner always betrayed the fact 
that the Emperor and Empress had led 
adventurous lives and had not been accus- 
tomed to the atmosphere of courts, dur- 
ing the early part of their careers. When 
the beautiful and accomplished Princess 
Clothilde came, as the wife of Prince 
Napoleon, to Compiegne. the Empress 
Euge'nie undertook to give her some slight 
advice as to her dress and manners. But 
the Princess quietly remarked, "You 
forget, Madam, that I wsisborn at Court," 
which caused a coolness between the 
ladies for some time. 

The amusements offered the guests in- 
vited to Compiegne were invariably the 
same. On the day of the arrival there 
was a grand dinner, a charade, little 
games, and a " hop." The next day, 
after breakfast, there was hunting either 
in the reserve park or in the pheasautry. 
The Emperor was very fond of shooting- 
matches, to which only ten or twelve 
guests were admitted to the honor of 
partaking this pleasure with him. These 
must be either sovereigns or foreign 
princes staying at the palace, princes of 
the blood, ambassadors, marshals of 
France, and the ministers, and two or 
three officers of the chase. The guests 
who were of small consequence went 
hunting in the forest under the guidance 
of a general guard, or shot at birds with 
the ladies on the lawn. The Empress 
was very fond of archery, and had a fas- 
cinating train of beauties who could draw 
the bow with skill. In the evening after 
the grand hunting-match there was usu- 
ally a play in the palace theatre. The 
companies of the subsidized theatres of 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CAL 1/ 



39 



Paris were expected .to perform at least 
once (luring the season at Compiegnc be- 
fore the Emperor and Empress. It is a 
striking commentary on the taste of the 
Imperial Court that the Palais Royal 
Company was the most popular of all. 
Neither the Emperor nor the Empress were 
fond of music. The theatrical represen- 
tations cost from 20,000 to 40,000 francs 
each. The artists of the Theatre Francais 
were the only ones who were allowed to 
go and salute the Emperor and Empress 
aud indulge in a few moments' conversa- 
tion with them after the play. 

The luxury of the Imperial theatre 
was quite remarkable. The Imperial 
box contained one hundred and fifty 
seats, and on each side of it was a gal- 
lery, so called, in which the most beau- 
tiful women of the Court took their 
places. At nine o'clock precisely, on 
the evening of the play, the chief 
chamberlain came into the loge in 
Court costume, with rapier at side, 
and announced in a loud voice, "The 
Emperor!" Then every one arose. 
The Emperor and Empress came in, 
bowing to right and left, and sat down 
in their great gilded chairs, with a little 
army of chamberlains and domestics 
behind them. On a gala night this 
theatre furnished a complete epitome of 
society under the Empire. There might 
be seen in sumptuous toilettes the Count- 



ess de Persignv, the Countess Walewska, 
the beautiful Countess Le Hon, the young 
Duchess de Moray, the Duchess de 
Bassano, aud Madame Drouyn de Lhuys, 
Madame de Saulev, and the Marchioness 
Aguado ; then, in the second rank, the 
joyous ladies who were the especial fa- 
vorites of the Empress, — the Countess 
de Pourtales, the Marchionesses de Gal- 
liffet, de Cadore, de Villa Marina, and 
a host of beautiful foreign ladies, Amer- 
ican, Italian, Spanish, German, and 
English. 

On these occasions the toilette de bal 
was rigorously exacted from all the 
ladies. No Duchess of sixty was ex- 
empted by the Empress from the rigid 
rule which required her to bare her 
shoulders. It is said that one day the 
Empress's careful gaze detected an old 
lady who had violated the rule, aud who 
had hidden herself as well as she could 
in the last row of seats in the loges. 
The chamberlain was immediately sent 
to order the lady at once to leave the 
hall. 

On certain occasions the Court was 
invited to some aristocratic cJidteau in 
the neighborhood. During the day 
there was a hunting expedition, the cere- 
mony of the curie, or the feeding of 
the hounds by torch-light in the court- 
yard ; aud afterwards, in the parlors, a 
sreat ball. 



40 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER THREE. 

What was the Second Empire? — How was it Created? — The Perjury of the Prince President. — The 
Plebiscite. — The Massacres of December. — General Changarnier and his Fidelity to his Coun- 
try.— The Protest of the Deputies. — Struggle of the Citizens. — The Reign of Terror. — The 
Imperial Eagle. — A Period of Absolute Repression. 



WE have seen the Second Empire at 
the height of its glory, its creator 
and master surrounded by brilliant pag- 
eants, visited by neighboring monarchs, 
entertaining the nations at a grand fes- 
tival of peace and industry, and inaugu- 
rating in the same year a democratic and 
liberal policy. To the casual observer 
this might have seemed a lilting culmi- 
nation to a just and honorable career. 
But, while everything on the surface was 
fair to sec, it was impossible to deny the 
presence of internal convulsions, which 
seemed likely to bring speedy disrup- 
tion and ruin upon the Imperial party, 
if not upon the nation which it governed. 
What was the cause of the powerful 
opposition to the Empire which had 
grown up since ISC..")? Why was it that 
the leading liberals of the country, who 
were naturally anxious at all cost to 
maintain public order and to prevent the 
advent to power of the aggressive Social- 
ists and Communists, — why was it that 
they did not rally to the support of this 
Empire, which professed its willingness 
to give the country ample liberty, just as 
fast as it could demonstrate its fitness to 
possess it? A sufficient answer to these 
questions may be found in a brief recital 
of the origin of the Second Empire ; and 
this resume of one of the most remarka- 
ble political events of modern times is 
necessary to a complete understanding 
of the dramatic series of disasters which 



lie fell Erauce before the foundation of 
the Third Republic. 

The stoiy has been told in a hundred 
ways : with picturesque and poetic vi- 
vacity by Victor Hugo and Kinglake ; 
with force and sincerity by Taxilc De- 
lord ; and with the uupitying and flawless 
clearness of a judge summing up the 
career of one on trial before him, by 
Jules Simon. 

The majority of those who voted for 
Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as 
President of the French Republic, on 
the 10th of December, 1848, doubtless 
expected that, in the course of his polit- 
ical career, he would undertake a coup 
(VElat. As Jules Simon very neatly 
puts it, " A nation does not give a Re- 
public into the hands of a prince when 
it wishes to save a Republic." But 
shortly after his election, the President, 
in obedience to the constitution, which 
had abolished the political oath for all 
functionaries except for the chief magis- 
trate of the nation, took, before the 
national representatives in the Assem- 
bly, the following oath : — 

•• In the presence of God, and before 
the French people represented by the 
National Assembly, I swear to remain 
faithful to the Republic, democratic, 
inn' et indivisible, and to fulfil all the 
duties which the constitution imposes 
upon me." 

This was certainly a formal engage- 



EUROPE IN ST011M AND CALM. 



41 



nient, from which there was uo honora- 
ble retreat, ami the President of the 
Assembly solemnly called upon God and 
man to witness the oath which the Prince 
had just taken. From that time for- 
ward the French Republic rested entirely 
upon 1 the good faith of Prince Louis 
Napoleon, who had from his earliest 
childhood announced publicly to hi* 
friends and acquaintances that he would 
one day be Emperor of France, and who 
had twice himself tried, by force of arms, 
to gain power in the country to which ho 
felt himself called by fate. I do not 
say called by Providence, for Providence 
entered but little into the calculations of 
the late Emperor of the French. He 
was a pure fatalist ; far more so even 
than the first Napoleon, and showed 
ample proof of this in the manner in 
which he submitted, without even a dem- 
onstration of heroism, to his misfortune 
:it Sedan. lie felt, in short, that the 
" game was up," that the stars were no 
longer kindly ; and he was too strong to 
complain, too much of a fatalist to 
make any endeavor to change circum- 
stances. 

Louis Napoleon lost no time in con- 
firming the assurances which he had given 
in his oath. On the 20th of December, 
1848, he said that the suffrages of the 
nation and the oath that he had taken 
commanded his future conduct and 
traced his public duty, so that he could 
not mistake it. " I shall regard," he 
said, "as enemies of the country all 
those who try by illegal means to change 
the form of government which you have 
established." He had previously said 
(just before his election) that if elected 
President he should devote himself en- 
tirely, without any sort of reserve, to the 
establishment of the Republic. "I will 
pledge my honor," he said, " to leave 
at the eud of four years to rny succes- 



sor power strengthened, liberty intact, 
and real progress accomplished." 

M. Jules Simon tells us that on the 
12th of August, 1850, the President of 
the Republic said to the mayor of Lyons, 
" You may possibly have heard some 
remarks about a coup d'Etat. You did 
not believe them, and I thank you for 
this proof of confidence." At a great 
dinner, given in his honor at Strasbourg, 
he alluded to the rumors of a possible 
attack upon the Republic, and repudi- 
ated them with scorn. " I know noth- 
ing but my duty," he said. A year after- 
wards, in November of 1851, he still 
professed an unalterable devotion to the 
Republic. The President of the Council 
said of him to one of his colleagues, 
" He is the most honest man in the 
Republic. He will never betray his 
oath ; I am sure of it." 

For more than three years, therefore, 
Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte an- 
nounced repeatedly, and on public and 
private occasions, that he was faithful 
to the Republic, and that he would con- 
sider as a great criminal any one who 
should become a traitor to that form of 
government, so recently established in 
France. Rut there seems little doubt 
that as early as 1850 he had definitely 
resolved to betray his trust. From that 
time forward he began to have uses for 
large sums of money, which his expen- 
ditures merely as President of the Re- 
public did not seem to justify. He 
received as salary 1,200, 000. francs from 
the nation, pud perquisites ; but he man- 
aged to get his appropriation increased 
to 1,490,000 francs the first year, and 
to 3,410,000 the second year. In every 
place of importance to which he could 
appoint a functionary he put a man who 
was devoted, not to the State or to the 
Republic, but to himself. Never were 
there so many men of small or no scru- 



42 



FfROVE IN STOU.M AND CALM. 



pies placed in raiuisterial and other 

positions of trust and honor. 

In 1850 he began to copy in many 
ways the fashions of the First Empire, 
and to talk everywhere of the Napoleonic 
Legend, which had already been so use- 
ful to him. In January of 1849, and at 
the end of 1850, there were mysterious 
movements of troops, which were 
thought by the Republicans t<> indicate 
attempts at a rmip d'Etat. But nothing 
came of either of them. A good story 
is told of the clever manner in which 
old General Changarnier managed to 
prevent the Imperialist manifesto in 
1850. A great review of troops had 
been held on the heights of Satory near 
Versailles. At this review the troops, 
who had been thoroughly interested in 
the Imperial cause, cried boldly, '• 17/v 
VEmpereur!" Troops had been massed 
around the Gare St. Lazare iu Paris, 
and it was intended that the Prince 
President, when he arrived from the 
review, should place himself at the head 
of these troops, march to the Tuileries, 
and there proclaim his Dictatorship. 
But those who had thus plotted had not 
taken into account the cleverness of 
General Changarnier, who had discov- 
ered this plot, and who checked it by a 
movement of supreme coolness and good 
sense. The Prince President arrived at 
the railway station with his proclamation 
in his pocket, and surrounded by his 
counsellors and by the ringleaders of the 
conspiracy. IB' was moving to his car- 
riage when General Changarnier stepped 
up, complimented him upon the success 
of the review, ceremoniously conducted 
him to the carriage, shut the door of it. 
with his own hands, and said to the 
coachman, " Drive to the Flysee." Na- 
poleon was not devoid of esprit. He 
saw by something in Changarnier's de- 
meanor that his plan had been discov- 



ered, lie took care not to countermand 
the orders given to the coachman. 

Old General Changarnier was incor- 
ruptible to the last. He used to say 
thai Napoleon had frequently offered to 
him, not only the dignity of marshal, 
but various other important positions, if 
the general would consent to enlist him- 
self in the ranks of the conspirators. 
When it was found that Changarnier 
could not be corrupted, he was attacked 
on all sides by the party in power. 
Finally lie was removed from his post 
as Commander of the Army and the 
National Guard. On that day Monsieur 
Thiers, who was wiser than most of the 
men of his time, said in the legislative 
assembly, "The Empire is established." 

In 1851 Napoleon and his men moved 
rapidly forward to the conclusion of 
their enterprise. The law of the 31st of 
May. which suppressed three millions 
of voters, and to establish which the 
Prince President had himself helped, was 
now used by him to increase his popu- 
larity at the expense of that of the 
National Assembly. Indeed, Napoleon 
placed himself with great dexterity iu 
this secure position, that he might say 
to the French people that if he over- 
turned the Assembly it was to save 
universal suffrage. The first step tow- 
ards absolute [lower was thus made by 
causing a conflict of authority between 
the Prince President and the representa- 
tives of the people in the National As- 
sembly. Then the Assembly proposed 
what was known as the loi des questeurs, 
which gave the right to the officers of 
the Assembly to demand forces necessary 
to secure the legislative body against 
armed interference. This was a sign of 
weakness, of which the Imperial faction 
speedily took advantage. While matur- 
ing their plan, the Imperialists had natu- 
rally bestowed great attention upon the 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



43 



army: As M. Jules Simon says, "The 
generals were mere creatures of the Im- 
perialist conspirators." Those honest 
and courageous soldiers, who, like Lamo- 
riciere, could not be counted upon to 
betray' the country's cause, were already 
placed on a black list, and marked for 
arrest and seclusion whenever the blow 
should be struck. It is said that a 
great part of the patrimony of Napoleon 
was given away, in small and large sums, 
to people in the military service whom 
he wished to corrupt. He even bor- 
rowed large sums for the same use 
both before and after his election as 
President. 

On the 1st of December, 1851, there 
was the usual evening reception at the 
Palace of the Elys6e. Various accounts 
of the events which occurred on this even- 
ing have been printed. Perhaps none 
are more correct than those of M . Maxime 
Ducampand M. Jules Simon. The Prince 
President remained in the parlors talking 
with the members of the diplomatic corps 
and distinguished visitors on all sorts of 
trivial matters, and making numerous 
engagements for the following day. No 
one saw in his face, or detected in his 
words, any signs of preoccupation. 
About ten o'clock, on this evening, the 
President made a sign to a colonel who 
had been named by the conspirators that 
veiy evening the chief of staff of the 
National Guard. " Colonel," said he, 
smiling, "are you master enough of 
your face not to let any great emotion ap- 
pear upon it? " — "I fancy so, Prince," 
replied the newly-promoted colonel. 
"Very well, then, it is for to-night," 
replied the President, in a low voice. 
" You do not start? Very well ; we are 
all right ! Can you give me your word 
that, to-morrow, the rappel will not be 
sounded anywhere, and that no assem- 
bly of the National Guard will take 



place ? " The colonel proceeded to say 
that he could and would carry out any 
order of that nature. The fact is, that 
when he left the Elys<5e that night he 
had the skins taken off from all the drum- 
heads, which was a very effective manner 
of preventing the drummers from making 
a noise on the fatal day. The Prince 
President conversed a few moments 
longer with the colonel, then said, "Go 
to the Minister of War ; but do not leave 
at once, or it will be thought I have given 
you an order." Then, taking the arm 
of the Spanish Ambassador, who came 
up at that moment, the Prince returned 
to his guests. 

On the same day, but earlier in the 
evening, the Prince President, in con- 
versation with the Mayor of Nantes, 
said to him, speaking of rumors of con- 
spiracy which had been recently circu- 
lated, " You, at least, M. Favre, do 
not believe this story ; is it not so ? You 
know that I am an honest man." The 
Mayor of Nantes must have smiled 
shortly afterwards, when he saw the 
work which the honest man had done. 

The next morning the French people, 
and the world outside, learned that the 
coup d'Jzltat had come at last. M.Thiers, 
the Generals Cavaignac, Lamoriciere, 
Bedeau, Changarnier, and other dis- 
tinguished officers, had been dragged 
from their beds and carried off to the 
prison of Mazas. 

All the streets surrounding the Elys6e 
and the Palais Bourbon, where the Na- 
tional Assembly held its sessions, were 
blocked up with troops. The officers 
commanding the few soldiers who were 
guarding the Legislative Palace were 
disarmed, and many of the officials of 
the Assembly were arrested. When the 
colonel charged with the duty of tak- 
ing the Legislative Palace entered that 
building he first went to the command- 



41 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



ant. There he found the lieutenant- 
colonel, who, startled by the unusual 
noise in the night, was just putting on 
his clothes. The colonel seized a sword 
which was lying upon the chair ; where- 
upon the Republican officer advanced, 
pale with rage, and said, "You do well 
to take it, for a moment later I would 
have run you through the body with it." 
This was, however, the only sign of re- 
sistance then made. When the morning 
of the 2d of December dawned nearly 
all the Liberal and Republican deputies 
of the country had been locked up in 
prison. Public buildings and offices 
were taken possession of by the con- 
spirators, and the hostile newspapers 
were suppressed, and a proclamation 
posted on the walls announced, " in the 
name of the French people and by de- 
cree of the President of the Republic," 
the dissolution of the National Assem- 
bly, and the reestablishment of univer- 
sal suffrage. New elections were de- 
creed. A state of siege was established 
in what was called the first military 
division. The Council of State was 
dissolved. This was revolution indeed. 
The proclamation of the Prince Presi- 
dent to the French nation was headed 
by the words, " Appeal to the People," 
which has ever since that time been the 
watchword of the Bonapartist party. 

That everything was carried out on 
this memorable night with such precision 
and complete, order is the best proof 
that the coup d'Etat was prepared along 
time in advance. It is even said that 
the Prince President had long had near 
him in a sealed package these proclama- 
tions ; and that on the package was 
written the word " Rubicon ;" from which 
we may infer that lie compared his forth- 
coming adventurous enterprise to the 
crossing of the Rubicon by Cassar. 
The resistance to this astoundingly 



audacious act was prompt, but feeble. 
A few deputies and politicians got to- 
gether hastily and signed a protest, de- 
claring that the Prince President by his 
act, in virtue of an article in the Consti- 
tution, had forfeited his position ; and in 
this same document the convening of the 
High Court of Justice was suggested. 
This document was signed by many of 
the most distinguished and eloquent men 
in France. Victor Hugo, who afterward 
became so prominent and powerful an 
enemy of the Imperialist cause, then 
drew up an appeal to arms, which was 
hastily struck off in the neighboring 
printing-offices, and scattered through 
the crowd. Finally a few deputies got 
together in the Palais Bourbon, the Im- 
perialist soldiers, meantime, having 
closed most of the doors and locked 
them, and left the building. But no 
sooner had the forty or fifty deputies, 
who had got in through a back door, 
begun their session, than a new body 
of soldiers arrived and drove them out. 
The deputies, and about one hundred 
and sixty or one hundred and seventy 
others then took refuge in one of the 
municipal buildings in the tenth ward, 
and there unanimously voted the decree 
which was drawn up by the great Ber. 
ryer, and which proclaimed the downfall 
of Bonaparte. 

But all this was of no avail. Troops, 
police commissioners, and other authori- 
ties, once more dispersed the represent- 
atives of the country in the name of the 
new Prefect of Police. A young officer 
coolly read a despatch which he had just 
received from a general to whom had 
been given the chief command of the 
troops in Paris. By this despatch the 
unlucky deputies learned that those who 
offered any resistance were to be at 
once arrested and taken to Mazas. 
Thev therefore surrendered, and went in 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



45 



a body to the great prison, conducted, as 
if they themselves were the insurrection- 
ists, by a squad of troops. Some of 
them were even taken by the collar, as 
if they were thieves or pickpockets. 

Then came the struggle of the citi- 
zens fighting for the constitution and 
the laws against the corrupted army 
and the representatives of the newly 
arrived authority. Those days of barri- 
cades and massacre are not yet forgot- 
ten. The spirit of Baudin, who was 
killed on the barricade in one of the 
days which followed the coup d'Etat, was 
destined to rise sixteen years afterwards 
and strike terror into the hearts of the 
supporters of the Empire. There were 
plenty of heroic attempts at resistance, 
but none were attended with any success 
iu the first two or three days. The 
deputies who had escaped arrest went 
from barricade to barricade, haranguing 
the crowds who had gathered to fight 
the troops. Wherever the cry of " Vive 
VAssemblde Ndtionale " was raised the 
troops charged upon the citizens, and a 
great many innocent and unarmed 
people were killed. On the 4th of 
December there was a veritable mas- 
sacre on the boulevard, and fifteen hun- 
dred men made a vigorous defence 
against more than forty thousand. It 
is said that on this day more than 
sixty people were killed between the 
Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle and the 
Boulevard des Italiens ; and the official 
Imperial papers six months after the 
fight admitted that three hundred and 
eighty persons were killed upon that day. 
On the 27th of January, 1853, M. de 
Maupas, Minister of Police, presented 
to the new Emperor a table, showing 
that twenty-six thousand six hundred 
and forty-two persons were arrested or 
prosecuted in France after the coup 
d'Etat. Twenty thousand of these were 



condemned to different terms of impris- 
onment ; the others were set at liberty. 
Thousands of persons were subjected to 
police surveillance, one of the most hu- 
miliating afflictions which can befall a 
human being. Nine hundred and fifteen 
persons were sentenced by courts-martial 
for crimes against the common law, so 
called, which' were really nothing but 
political offences. Nearly ten thousand 
political opponents of the new Empire 
were transported to Algeria. Thousands 
upon thousands were sent to linger in 
unhealthy prisons and in transport-ships 
waiting until there was an opportunity 
to send them to Cayenne or Lambessa. 
The least prejudiced and most careful 
authorities believe that they are not 
guilty of exaggeration in saying that the 
Revolution of the 2d of December, 1851, 
made, at least one hundred thousand 
victims. 

When the authors of the coup d'Etat 
were well established in power they pro- 
ceeded to fortify their position. They 
voted a " law of general surety," which 
placed every Frenchman at the arbitrary 
disposition of the police, to be trans- 
ported if he did, or even thought, any- 
thing against the government. Jules 
Simon says, "The law of the 27th of 
February, 1858, called the Law of 
General Surety, placed every citizen at 
the mercy of the Minister of the Inte- 
rior." The whole country seemed bound 
with iron bands. People who had be- 
come accustomed, under the Republic 
and under the comparatively mild mon- 
archies which had succeeded each other 
since the First Empire, to a reasonable 
amount of liberty, were astounded be- 
yond measure at the rigime in which they 
now entered. A respectable and respon- 
sible citizen would lie arrested upon the 
denunciation of some political and private 
enemy ; would be kept in prison without 



4(3 



EUROPE l.\ STOfiM AND CALM. 



being allowed to communicate with his 
family for weeks, sometimes for months ; 
would then be brought up before a com- 
missioner of police, who had very likely 
never heard of him, being appointed from 
the rank of the numerous Corsicans faith- 
ful to the [mperialisl cause, and would 
be sentenced to transportation. He 
would then he shackled with a criminal, 
packed into a prison wagon, taken to a 
seaport, and sent off to ('avenue, living, 
ratine;, and sleeping with the vilest crimi- 
nals, when his only offence might have 
been a word spoken lightly in blame of 
the Empire. 

A discreet and moderate critic has 
summed up the reasons for the success of 
the coup d'Etat in a few words. "The 
enterprise," he says, " only succeeded be- 
cause it was supported by sixty thousand 
men, and because at the first sign of re- 
sistance M. De Moray, according to his 
own expression, " knew how ' to take 
the town by terror.' Immense fact! 
France, with its military system, is in 
the power of him who holds the control 
of the armed forces in his hands." M. 
de Sybel sa\ s of the slaughter during 
the days following the coup d'Etat on 
the 4th of December : " When the Prince 
saw that there was an armed resistance 
the tiger in him got the uppermost. 
The troops received an order to suppress 
the movement wifli pitiless energy. In 
a few hours many hundreds of men, 
simple spectators, women, old men, and 
children, were massacred. It was the 
same in the departments. Wherever 
resistance broke out it was put down 
with frightful cruelty. The number of 
those actually killed has not been made 
known, but more than twenty-six thou- 
sand men were sent across the ocean in 
exile in a tew weeks. " 

Immediately after the country had 
been terrorized by the coup d'Etat and its 



attendant massacres, the President an- 
nounced "The Plebiscite." Now a ple- 
biscite is the favorite arm of French 
Imperialism. It is an election with appar- 
ent fairness, yet an election so arranged 
that it is impossible for citizens with 
safety to vote against the interests of the 
government which brings about the elec- 
tion. The formula laid down by the new 
authorities, to be voted upon, was as fol- 
lows: "The French people wishes the 
maintenance of the authority of Louis 
Napoleon Bonaparte, and delegates to 
him the powers necessary to make a con- 
stitution on the basis proposed in his 
proclamation of the 2d of December." 
Thus the country had first the dispersion 
of its regularly elected representatives 
by an armed force ; then a proclamation 
by the party employing that armed force 
announcing new elections; then the new 
elections held within the iron grooves 
made by the party having possession of 
power. It is therefore not startling that 
the country, humiliated, crushed, and 
fearful lest, if the embryo Empire were 
swept away, civil war might ensue, gave 
its coerced assent to the formula of the 
plebiscite. The vote was as follows: 
7,439,216, " Yes," against 040,737, 
" No." The Prince President professed 
to be delighted with his triumph, and 
went forward bravely to the construction 
of the Constitution. With regard to this 
" plebiscite " it should be added, that 
there were more than a million and a half 
of abstentions in the country, and these 
may be supposed to represent the men 
who were too honest to say yes. and too 
weak to say no. These many millions 
of votes, on which the claims of the Im- 
perial party to power have been based 
ever since, gave Louis Napoleon Bona- 
parte the presidency of the Republic for 
ten years. " France," he said, in joyous 
indiscretion, " has responded to the royal 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



47 



appeal which I made to her. She lias 
understood that I transgressed legality 
only to get back to justice." More than 
seven millions of votes had absolved 
him. 

Thenceforward the attitude of the 
Prince President was void of 
dissimulation. On the 1st of 
January. 1852, he placed the 
Imperial eagle on his flags, 
chose the Tuileries for his 
residence, even had a Te 
Dcuiu sung at the cathedral 
of Notre Dame de Paris, and 
otherwise imitated the pro- 
ceedings of the First Empire. 
In the same month he ex- 
pelled from the country all 
the old representatives of the 
Legislative Assembly who 
had opposed him ; and among 
them were such men as Victor 
Hugo, Edouard Laboulaye, 
Nadaud, Bancel, Pelletier, 
Schoeleher, andGambon. I le 
also sentenced to temporary 
exile Changaruier, Thiers, de 
Remusat, and many other dis- 
tinguished Republicans. This 
month of January was a fruit- 
ful working time with him. 
He promulgated the new Con- 
stitution, of which he was the 
author, and in which he at- 
tributed to himself the initia- 
tive of the laws, the appoint- 
ing of the members of the 
Senate, and defined the few 
rights which were left to 
house of the Legislature, 
created a Minister of Police 
cated the estates of the Orleans family ; 
but it was not until September of this 
same year that, while inaugurating the 
equestrian statue of Napoleon I., at 
Lyons, he hinted his intention of re- 



establishing the Empire ; and in October, 
at Bordeaux, he made a speech, in which 
he used the celebrated phrase, " ' U Em- 
pire e'est hi paix.' It is peace because 
Prance desires it ; and when France is 
satisfied the rest of the world is tranquil." 




the lower 
Next, he 
nd confis- 



EPISODE OF THE COUP D'ETAT. 

On his return to Paris cries of " Vive 
V Empereur ! " were raised by the official 
chorus always in his train : but the Prince 
President was like Richard III., — he 
liked to be urged ; and. according to 
him, it was only in obedience to public 
opinion that he consented to consult the 
Senate. This servile body voted the 



48 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



establishment of the Empire, almost 
unanimously, iu November of 1852, and 
a new plebiscite gave 7,824,129 votes 
for the Empire and 253,119 against it. 

Exactly one year after the coup d'Etat, 
on the 1st of December, 1852, at eight 
o'clock in the evening, Louis Bonaparte 
was solemnly proclaimed Emperor, by 
the name of Napoleon III., at St. Cloud, 
in the presence of the Senate and the 
Corps L&gislatif. Hy a decree of the 
18th of the same month he arranged 
the order of succession to the throne, 
richly dowered the newly made Impe- 
rial family, and gave himself a civil list 
of 25,000,000 francs, exclusive of the 
revenues derived from the domain of 
the crown. 

We need not pursue further our re- 
view of the Second Empire. Its whole 
history, from the creation of Napo- 
leon as President to the brilliant year 



of which we have sketched some of the 
salient features, may be read in the fol- 
lowing brief sentences from the pen of 
Jules Simon : — ■ 

'• I will pass over the eighteen years 
of the reign inaugurated by the 2d of 
December. They might be summed up 
as to the internal regime in these words: 
the mixed commissions (which decreed 
the executions and expulsions following 
the coup d'Etat); the general surety; 
the repressive administration of the 
Press, and the official candidateships ; no 
liberties whatever ; and for the external 
policy, this only : Sebastopol ; Italian 
unity cleft in twain by the Peace of 
ViUafranca ; Mexico; Sadowa ; no al- 
liance." 

It was, in short, a period of absolute 
repression, which was approaching its 
close iu 18G7, and which was to finish in 
storm and blood. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



49 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Imperial Reforms come Too Late. — Uprising of the Internationale. — The Commune Foreshadowed. 



WHEN the Emperor Napoleon III. 
endeavored to save his tottering 
Empire by inaugurating liberal reforms 
in France, it was already too late. In 
his own party there were few if any 
statesmen, or even politicians of talent 
and importance, who believed that it 
was either safe or expedient to abandon 
the practice of repression, which had 
been kept up with such vigor for many 
years ; and all the sincere friends of 
real liberty were determined to postpone 
the advent of freedom rather than to 
accept it from the hands of "the man 
of December." The Empire was in dan- 
ger abroad from the constantly growing 
influence of Prussia, and at home from 
the skilful and insidious working of the 
great "International Association," — a 
nrysterious body of conspirators, with 
which most of the taleuted working- 
men of the great cities of France had 
relations ; from the gradually growing 
courage of the Press ; and also from 
the untameable eloquence of certain 
young orators in Paris, who, like Gam- 
betta, had not yet found a public out- 
Bide of the cafes of the Latin Quarter, 
but who were not frightened by visions 
of fine or imprisonment, and who man- 
aged to tell the people a good deal of 
truth. 

The Emperor had in his early days 
made careful studies of the condition of 
the working-men in France and in other 
European countries. He had written, 
during his captivity at Ham, certain 
pamphlets which caused him to be ac- 



cused of socialistic tendencies ; and he 
used laughingly to say of himself, when 
lie was in the full tide of his power at 
the Tuileries, that he was the only mem- 
ber of the European family of sovereigns 
who was a socialist. The real fact is 
that Napoleon III. was not a socialist at 
all, but that he was a skilful demagogue ; 
and had his lot been cast in a Republi- 
can country, where political campaigns 
are conducted with the greatest freedom, 
and even license, he would have been in 
his youth at the head of a working-men's 
party, which would have been powerful 
and unscrupulous, because he would 
have taken advantage of its ignorance. 
The Empire at. regular intervals made 
bids for popularity among the working- 
classes, and as regularly failed to achieve 
it. The endowment of hospitals, and 
occasional visits to industrial centres, did 
not, in the eyes of the thoroughly grieved 
and angered laborer, compensate for the 
lack of public schools, and for the main- 
tenance of most of the old monarchical 
oppressive formalities with regard to the 
condition of the toiler for wages. 

The retainers of the Empire had vivid 
memories of the Revolution of l*4.s. 
They took full advantage of their knowl- 
edge of its follies and its failures, 
and used them as an argument agaiust 
giving full liberties to the masses. Na- 
poleon himself, by the famous letter of 
the 19th of January, 1867, in which he 
spoke witli such apparent frankness of 
past repression, and made such generous 
promises of future liberality, meant to 



50 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



check in some measure the working- 
men's movement against the Empire 
and against authority. He had been 
shrewd enough to observe this movement 
two or three years before it came to the 
surface. No man was better placed 
than himself for obtaining a full appre- 
ciation of the volcanic shimmer; none 
better qualified to judge of the moment 
when the hidden forces might break 
forth. He knew the thinness of the crust 
upon which he stood ; but, although he 
knew it, his supporters aud partisans, 
flushed with long maintenance of power, 
aud blinded by their contempt for the 
laboring classes, refused to appreciate it. 
M. Rouher, so long in the service of 
the Empire that he had come familiarly 
to be called the " Vice-Emperor," was 
deeply grieved, and somewhat angered 
by Napoleon's letter. M. Rouher was 
a robust Auvergnat, blessed with two 
flue elements of success, — a massive 
physique, which gave him an unbounded 
capacity for work ; and an easy con- 
science, which enabled him to find a 
speedy apology for any misdeed which 
seemed to serve for the moment the ends 
of the Empire. Rouher was expected by 
his friends to resign his portfolio as Min- 
ister of State at the beginning of 1807, 
because it was well known in Imperialist 
circles that lie was the greatest advocate 
of a continuance of repressive policy. 
He used to say that the reforms of which 
the Emperor talked so airily would lie 
the very abomination of desolation ; that, 
the country had all the liberties it was 
fitted to possess, and that it was suicidal 
for the Empire to giant more. It, is 
impossible to avoid the conclusion that 
Napoleon was gifted with greater fore- 
sight, than that possessed by his Minister 
of State. Had the Emperor been able to 
achieve his purpose of satisfying by par- 
tial reforms the clamorous workers who 



were gradually unsettling the social 
order, aud at the same time by arrange- 
ments witli Prussia to offset the pre- 
ponderance which that aggressive nation 
had recently obtained, by getting some 
territorial aggrandizement for France, 
lie might have died upon the throne of 
France. 

But the fates seemed against him, 
and the Napoleons have always believed 
in the fates. The ease with which he 
succumbed in 1870 leads one to believe 
that he felt his cause lost when he failed 
in 18G7 and 1868 to carry out his plan. 

The first check which the Emperor 
received, in his endeavor to save the sit- 
uation, came from the efforts of a pow- 
erful and popular Parisian journalist, 
M. Emile de Girardin, an old war-horse 
of combat, who had a reputation in 
France something like that won by 
Horace Greeley in America ; who had the 
energy and bravery of a good soldier, 
and the suppleness, the delicacy in in- 
trigue, of a trained diplomat. M. de 
Girardin was an uncompromising enemy 
of the Emperor's new departure, and as 
early as March, 1867, he was so aggres- 
sive as to come under the Imperial law, 
and he was fined 5,000 francs for a press 
offence. This was because he denied 
with much eloquence tin- Emperor's as- 
sertion that he had brought the country 
gradually, year by year, up to better 
things. Another journalist who dared to 
beard the Emperor, and who did it with 
a skill and daring of which France had 
rarely seen instances for half a genera- 
tion, was Henri Rochefort, whose roman- 
tic history since that time is now well 
known all over the world. Rochefort 
began to write, in a sprightly Paris journal 
called the Figaro, about the time that 
that paper became a daily in 1860. He 
won a brilliant reputation as a chroniqueur 
and critic of political events in 1867, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



M 



and the liberal public rallied around him. 
The blows which he struck were so hard 
that the Empire speedily put itself upon 
the defensive, and the sale of the Figaro 
upon the public street was forbidden In- 
law. This under the Empire was a 
common occurrence. The purchaser of 
a Republican or Liberal paper expected 
at least once a month to find that his 
journal had been seized, or that its 
sale had been stopped in the little kiosks, 
or wooden pavilions, where the news- 
vendors sell their wares on the boule- 



writing against the Empire. They were 
not always decent in their attacks, and 
M. Rochefort must now and then blush 
when he remembers the diatribes pub- 
lished in his Lanterne, which was founded 
by him, in 1868, expressly to combat the 
Empire. 

But they did their work, and did it 
well. The more the Empire prosecuted, 
the greater became the daring of the 
journalists of these last days of the 
Imperial reijime, and the Emperor was. 
bitterly perplexed. If he accorded com* 




A PARISIAN JOURNALIST IX PRISON. 



vards; and he went philosophically to 
the bookseller, behind whose sheltering 
windows he would find the offending 
journal, generally at an advanced price. 
I)e Girardin and Rochefort gave the first 
impetus to the final revolt against the 
Empire. They laughed to scorn the 
promises of those who had so long 
practised a different doctrine from that 
which they now professed. They spoke 
out with an earnestness all the more 
striking because it was contrasted with 
the irony, or the compressed wit, with 
which Liberals like Prevost Paradol had 
felt obliged to content themselves when 



plete liberties he felt that he might be 
swept away on account of them ; if be 
did not accord complete liberties they 
might be taken by force out of his 
hands. 

The International Association of 
Workingmen was an enemy which the 
faltering Empire strove to reach by 
every means in its power. It tracked 
down the humble artisans who met in 
out of the way places to pa^s measures 
which in America or England would 
have been considered as in no way prej- 
udicial to the safety of the State, and 
not very dangerous to the property of 



52 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



the capitalist. It published decrees. 
It strengthened its prohibitive measures 
against secret societies, and put down 
" strikes," which were becoming very 
numerous, with the greatest promptness. 
But the Internationale, as it was called, 
was as difficult to kill as the Nihilist 
organization has been at a later day in 
Russia. " It was," says the Vicomtc 
de Beaumont- Yassy, in his "Authentic 
History of the Commune of Paris," "a 
terrible secret society, which sought to 
envelop tbe whole world in its invisible 
snares, and seemed to us in the nine- 
teenth century as if endeavoring to 
execute upon governments such sen- 
tences as the secret tribunals of (Ger- 
many in the middle ages executed upon 
sovereigns." 

The Internationale was a terrible bug- 
bear to the bourgeois, or property-holding 
man of the middle classes, and his fears 
were not unfounded, as will Ik 1 seen 
later. 

It is the fashion in France to say 
that the Internationale hail its origin 
in Germany. I have no desire to 
enter closely into the origin of the 
Association. The supposition that it is 
due to the theories so copiously written 
upon by Leibnitz and Jacobi in Germany 
has uo better foundation than that which 
gives us as its originators such great 
and wrong-headed thinkers as Proudhon 
and Pierre Leroux. 

A certain number of French writers 
say that the first socialistic notions of 
the Internationale came into France with 
the German workmen who emigrated 
from their homes in great numbers to 
the fertile lands and richer cities beyond 
the Rhine, in the ten years preceding 
the war of 1870. That which is estab- 
lished beyond doubt is that the Inter- 
nationale was a. practical and active 
organization, setting aside as useless the 



vague and hollow theories of Louis Blanc 
and other kindred spirits about the rela- 
tions of labor to capital and to the State. 
The laborers of the new generation were 
determined on emancipation. 

In England, Karl Marx brought the In- 
ternational Association of Working-men 
fairly into good society for a time ; and 
in the countries where it was not harassed 
and driven into hiding-places it did not 
extensively advertise its socialistic pro- 
pensities. In France, because the Em- 
pire harried it without cessation, it 
fomented strikes, provoked riots in the 
cities, and published proclamations which 
made the bourgeois tremble in his shoes. 
I have heard Frenchmen seriously say 
that Bismarck subsidized the Association 
at the time of the great Creuzot strike. 
The reason given for this was that 
Prussia, always on the alert against at- 
tacks by the Imperial Government, had 
a direct interest in creating as much 
embarrassment for that government as 
possible. This is a doubtful story. 

The programme of the International 
Association was comprehensive and radi- 
cal. It was printed for the first time 
in London, and speedily got into print 
iu France, although any comment upon 
its doctrines was sternly forbidden. The 
document was as follows : — 

" Every man has a right to existence, 
and, consequently, a right to work. 

"The right, to work is imprescriptible, 
and. for that reason, ought to be accom- 
panied by the right of instruction and of 
liberty of action. 

"As it is at present constituted, so- 
ciety can offer no real guarantee to the 
laborer. 

" In fact, an obstacle arises before 
him at the very outset of his career. 
This obstacle is capital. 

" Whichever way the laborer turns, he 
cannot battle against the inert force of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



53 



money, accompanied and supported by 
the intelligent capitalist. 

" To solve the problem some have tried 
association ; others, mutualism. They 
thought they were settling, but in fact 
they were only muddling, the question. 

"They did not perceive that, so long 
as capital remained intact, the associa- 
tion of mere brain and muscle would not 
suffice ; but that they must have their 
own capital, and that this is all the more 
important, because the money capitalists 
would oppose with all their force the 
revolt of labor against their tyranny. 
By this fact alone previous associations 
of working-men are condemned. Mutual- 
ism has done nothing for the working- 
man or the laborer but to put him more 
than ever under the domination of money ; 
so that there is nothing to be hoped from 
these methods. 

"Now, it is not capital alone which 
binds down the working-man. Swaddled 
from his infancy in the triple loug-clotlies 
of country, family, and religion ; cradled 
in the respect for property, however it 
may have been got, the proletariat can 
become something only on condition of 
annihilating all this, of casting away 
from it these old notions of paternal 
barbarisms. 

" The International Association has 
and can have no other aim than that of 
aiding in the extinction of these mon- 
strous prejudices. 

" It ought to become to workmen 
of all countries a centre of action, an 
energetic director, to show them how to 
act together. It alone has the power 
and the right to discipline the masses, 
to hurl them upon their oppressors, who 
will feel crushed beneath the shock. 

"To this end its programme should 
be the abolition of all religions, of prop- 
erty, of the family, of the hereditary 
principle, and of the nation. 



" When the International Society of 
Working-men has stamped out the germ 
of these prejudices among all laborers 
capital will be dead. Then society can 
arise upon an indestructible basis ; then 
workmen will rally for the right to 
work ; then women will be free. The 
child will have a real right to live under 
the a>gis of a society which will no 
longer abuse him. 

"But let no one deceive himself; let 
dreamers seek no system for arriving at 
a solution that force alone can give. 

"Force! this is what will give the 
sceptre of the world to the laboring 
classes ; outside of this nothing can lift 
them from the rut of rotten modern civ- 
ilization. 

" When two contrary powers are op- 
posed to one another one of the two 
must be annihilated. 

' ' To arms, laborers ! Progress and 
humanity count upon you." 

Who cannot see in this twaddling, 
incoherent proclamation the germ of the 
dread Socialism which crept into the 
Commune of Paris shortly after its 
proclamation in 1871, and which did such 
dire mischief? Those followers of the 
Empire who were blessed with sufficient 
intelligence to review the shortcomings 
of their party's career could not fail to 
perceive that this programme of the 
Internationale was the outcome of an 
ignorance which might have been 
amended, if not entirely swept away, 
so far as the French working-men were 
concerned, during the years between 
1848 and 1867. In point of fact what 
French workmen were clamoring for 
was extremely simple. They needed 
the abolition of the privileges of the 
employing class ; the abolition of the 
livret, or " character-book," which made 
each artisan in some sense a slavish 
dependent on his employer ; and they 



54 



EUROl'h: I\ STORM AND CALM. 



furthermore needed the right of public 
assembly, unrestricted right to bear 
arras, and the uninterrupted right to 
strike when they had a decent grievance. 
But, because the Empire had persistently 
denied them these things, they weir 
driven in their mad determination to 
protest against the social order which 
had done nothing for them, by affiliation 
with the grotesque anil abominable 
theories of this so-called International 
Association of Working-men. When 
the Empire repented and wished to give 



them reforms the propitious hour was 
passed. The germ of the Commune was 
sown. The government, which had 
usurped authority in France on the ex- 
clusive plea that it had a mission to 
maintain order, had at the end of its 
career the disgrace of seeing a social 
disorder, more profound and terrible than 
any which has occurred elsewhere in this 
century, uprising with dreadful speed, 
and in spite of the most vigorous c:: - 
deavor to keep it down. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



55 



CHAPTER FIVK. 



Events in Spain. — The Outcropping of Revolution. — Rule of the Internationale. — Brief Review of 
Spanish Politics. — Dona Isabel. — Prim and Serrano. — A Journey through the North of Spain. 
Biarritz and San Sebastian. — A Wonderful Railway. — The Approach to the Escurial. — An Im- 
pressive Edifice. — Looking at a Dead Monarch. 



WHILE there were, thus, many pro- 
tests in France against the re- 
pressive government of the Second 
Empire, few people fancied that the Re- 
publican experiment was likely to begin 
in earnest for many years ; and it is amus- 
ing to look back and remember how 
earnestly the French of liberal sympa- 
thies watched the progress of events 
beyond the Pyrenees, confident that in 
Spain the Republic would first get a firm 
hold. Spanish polities have rarely been 
more interesting since the beginning of 
this perturbed century than they were in 
1869. The rapid succession of pictu- 
resque and dramatic events, which had 
taken place since Queen Isabel tied from 
her capital to San Sebastian, had turned 
the gaze of all Europe to the country 
which seemed suddenly to have awakened 
from its long and slothful devotion to 
priestcraft and to the least intelligent 
form of monarchy. The famous Inter- 
nationale was said to have wide ramifi- 
cations in Spain, and to be preparing 
socialistic revolutions which were to 
break forth simultaneously in the north- 
ern and southern districts. Thedisturb- 
anee in Spain undoubtedly contributed 
somewhat to make the authorities of the 
Second Empire in France nervous and 
suspicious. It was believed by no one 
iu the Imperial party that intelligent Re- 
publicanism was strong enough in either 
France or Spain to establish itself ; but 



this mysterious and subterranean agent 
known as the Internationale, working di- 
rectly upon the passions and prejudices of 

the uneducated or half-educated classes, 
was dreaded and feared. In the autumn 
of 1869 the Internationale was as much 
talked of as the Nihilists have been in re- 
cent years. Wherever a blow could be 
struck at it iu France, as in 1867, the 
government never lost an opportunity. 

It would be difficult to understand what 
was taking place in Spain at this time 
without briefly reviewing Spanish politi- 
cal history from the beginning of the 
century. We find Napoleon 1. at Ba- 
yonne shortly after Charles IV. had given 
up his crown to his son, Ferdinand VII. ; 
and the Corsican ogre has a curt inter- 
view with these two Spanish kings, forc- 
ing them to yield their rights to the 
throne, carrying off the whole royal 
family prisoners into France, ami giving 
the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph 
Bonaparte. Victor Hugo lias given us 
some thrilling pictures of the life at the 
French Court in Spain after 1808, when 
the country rose as one man against the 
hateful sovereignty which had been im- 
posed upon it. Hugo's mother was in 
the great retreat from Spain when Joseph 
Bonaparte was summarily expelled ; and 
there is no more disastrous withdrawal 
of troops from an unsuccessful campaign 
in French history than was this. Welling- 
ton and his men had driven the French 



56 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



troops back upon the Kbro. Napoleon 
bad come to the aid of his brother, had 
been conqueror at Burgos and Tudela, 
bad even entered Madrid and summoned 
the authorities to give him up the sword 
which Francis I. had lust at Pavia. But 
all this was in vain. The guerillas kept 
up their redoubtable warfare, and, al- 
though Saragossa succumbed before the 
tremendous attack of Lannes, Napoleon 
had to own that he was fairly beaten; 
and in 1813, Spain, after live years of 
most horrible convulsions, put Ferdinand 
VII. upon the throne. lie was a despot, 
and was soon surrounded by conspiracy, 
was frightened into taking an oath to the 
Liberal constitution which had been pre- 
pared in 1 <S 1 2 , and liberty was springing 
up when the nobles banded together and 
stifled it in its cradle. 

There was a revolution, but the sov- 
ereigns of Europe saw that it would not 
do to let Liberal ideas blossom in Spain, 
and so one huudred thousand Frenchmen 
reestablished Ferdinand VII. in his ab- 
solute power. When this monarch died, 
in 1833, a civil war of succession broke 
out. Then came Doha Isabel, who was 
proclaimed as Queen under the tutelage 
of the queen-mother Maria Christina, and 
Don Carlos, the brother of the King, was 
excluded. In 1833 the queen-mother 
gave to her people a constitutional char- 
ter, — a kind of weak compromise be- 
tween absolutism and liberalism, — and 
she hoped that this would strengthen her 
position. Meantime Don Carlos was 
knocking furiously at her palace gates. 
What bloodshed, what anguish, have 
been caused by this Carlist faction dur- 
ing the last half-century ! 

Dona Isabel's reign was neither better 
nor wiser than that of many of her prede- 
cessors. Espartero and Narvaez in turn 
exercised their power on the country 
which had seen its Republican ideals 



so ruthlessly shattered. The cultivated 
ami ambitious Liberals of Spain found 
the ail' unhealthy for them, and pined 
away in voluntary exile in foreign cities ; 
or if they ventured to conspire, or to 
think and speak freely against the rotten 
condition of the country, they incurred 
heavy penalties. The bouse of the 
Bourbons, which had reigned in Spain 
since 17oil, with the slight interregnum 
caused by the intervention of Napoleon 
and his brother, was destined to meet 
with strange adventures. After Queen 
Isabel had been on the throne for a 
quarter of a century, in l.sr„S a revolu- 
tion, which had been long foreseen by 
the wise men of all countries in Europe, 
broke forth with resistless power. Of- 
ficers of the army, who had been exiled 
because of Liberal sentiments, gave the 
signal for this great revolt against mon- 
archy by a daring incursion into Spain. 
The populations in the cities of the 
South suddenly rose in revolution, and 
the Queen, after sending away so much 
of her fortune as she could realize has- 
tily to banks in Paris and London, fled 
to St. Sebastian. A great joy seemed 
to run through the peninsula, and proc- 
lamations were posted in the cities and 
in the towns, calling the people to arms. 
The parties unexpectedly coalesced. The 
exiled generals returned, and organized 
troops in the provinces. Prim and his 
men appeared in front of Cadiz, and 
took the town. Concha, whom Queen 
Isabel had made her prime minister, 
took the most energetic measures in 
vain. All that the frightened queen 
could secure was a promise that she 
might reenter Madrid without molesta- 
tion if she would leave her favorite Mar- 
fori behind. Doha Isabel said no; she 
would not give up her favorite. She 
then received the news that a " provi- 
sional government " had been formed at 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



57 



Madrid, and she crossed the frontier 
into France, where she was offered a 
refuge in the hospitable town of Pan. 
Then came the fall of the Bourbons in 
Spain. Universal suffrage was voted. 
The Jesuits were expelled from the 
country, and .Spain had entered into a 
Republic with the spilling of less blood 
than is customary at a bull-fight. The 
revolutionary chiefs announced their de- 
termination to give up their powers to 
the Cortes, and Europe marvelled at the 
wisdom of a country usually so turbu- 
lent in its politics. 

This produced an immense impression 
in France ; but the press did not feel at 
liberty to draw any conclusions from 
the Republican triumph in Spain. At 
the elections which followed the revolt 
of 1868, a monarchical majority was 
sent to the Cortes, and Marshal Ser- 
rano was made Regent, until, so said 
the monarchists, " a good king can be 
found." It was at this time that Cas- 
telar appeared upon the scene of Span- 
ish politics. After the patriot Orense, 
who had for a long time enjoyed the 
honor of being the onby veritable Span- 
ish Republican, he took the direction of 
the Democratic party, and came boldly 
forward to demand of the provisional 
government the immediate proclamation 
of a Spanish Republic. 

General Prim and Marshal Serrano, 
who had opposed the Bourbons only that 
they might get possession of power and 
place upon the throne a king that suited 
them, repelled Castelar's proposition. 
Then the genius of the Spanish orator 
began to declare itself. He made a 
grand tour through all the principal cit- 
ies of Spain, and in each of them made 
ringing speeches in favor of the cause of 
liberty and of republicanism. 

Castelar and Gambetta made their 
definite entry into public notoriety in 



this same exciting year of 1868 ; each 
was gifted with tremendous audacity ; 
each was entirely reckless of conse- 
quences to himself ; and each sowed seed 
from which was afterwards reaped an 
abundant harvest of good for France 
and Spain. Despite Castelar's eloquence 
and his almost superhuman exertions, 
at the general elections for the Cortes in 
the spring of 1869 only thirty-five Repub- 
licans were elected. This was a minority, 
and a decision not unlike that which in 
1869, in the French Corps L4gislatif, 
caused Napoleon III. and his minis- 
ters so much trouble. Castelar dashed 
into the attack upon the government 
with the same energy that he had dis- 
played in his campaign throughout the 
country. He asked for amnesty for all 
political offences, and again demanded 
the establishment of the Republic. In 
this same spring, too, he began his fa- 
mous assault upon religious fanaticism, 
which had so long been the curse of 
Spain. He won his battle, and liberals 
throughout Europe rejoiced when the tele- 
graph announced, one morning in April, 
1869, that Spain had at last granted lib- 
erty of public worship ; but although the 
great man was powerful enough to thrill 
to its very marrow the populations of 
Spain, with his resounding language, 
and to strike terrror into the hearts of 
the reactionists who ventured even to 
apologize for the horrors of the Spanish 
Inquisition ; although he was popular 
enough to have the right of citizenship 
conferred upon him by more than five 
hundred Spanish towns and villages, — 
he was without success in attacking the 
law which definitely established Marshal 
Serrano as Regent. 

Yet, day by day, the republican move- 
ment spread in wider and wider circles 
throughout the country ; and when the 
government of the Regent was bold 



58 



EUROPE IN STollM AND CALM. 



enough to announce that it was search- 
ing Europe for a new king for Spain, 
the revolution, which had been prepared 
by Castelar's subjects, burst forth with a 
violence and savagery quite different 
from that of the outbreak in 18G8. 

First the crown was offered to an ex- 
king of Portugal, who refused it ; then 
to the little Duke of Genoa, Prince of 
the House of Savoy. For a few days 
the candidateship of this boyish duke, 
who was then at school at Harrow, in 
England, seemed to have some chance 
in its favor. Castelar ami the other Re- 
publicans informed their supporters that 
they might soon expect to see a king 
brought to Madrid ; and then came the 
uprisings in Catalonia and in Andalusia, 
anil the splendid protest against king- 
ship at Saragossa and Valencia. But 
here the movement was checked. Va- 
lencia, besieged and bombarded, hail to 
surrender at the end of nine days' vio- 
lent battle, and Castelar, who, it is said, 
had secretly based his hopes upon the 
success of the insurrection, contented 
himself, for a time, with the withdrawal 
of the proposition to make the Duke of 
( tenoa king. 

Curious to see the revolution which 
1 fancied would result in the definite 
foundation of the Republic in Spain, I 
crossed the Pyrenees, and was an eye- 
witness of many episodes of the combat. 
Early in October, in 1869, I left Paris, 
where the Opposition to the Empire had 
suddenly assumed formidable propor- 
tions, and went to Madrid. Before en- 
tering Spain I paused at Biarritz, where, 
two years before. Bismarck had come to 
pay his homage to the Empress Eugenie. 

It was still the bathing season in the 
late southern autumn, and I sat down 
upon the sand near the sleepy surf, and 
watched the bathers coming and going, 
singing merry songs, and gesticulating 



madly. Biarritz was then the most 
fashionable of French watering-places. 
It was the custom to stop at Bayonne, 
the old town which gave the bayonet its 
name, and to drive over to Biarritz in 
diligences, drawn by hardy little mules, 
imported from beyond the Spanish 
frontier. 

Eugenie loved Biarritz and made its 
fortune. Napoleon would never have 
thought of going so far south to build 
an Imperial residence; but the Spanish- 
born Imph'atrice made her Todos, as she 
called him, build a beautiful palace by 
the southern sea. The route from 
Biarritz winds over high hills, among 
avenues of poplars, which cast their 
friendly shades to protect you from the 
glaring sun. Suddenly the beauty of 
the romantic coast of the Bay of Biscay 
bursts upon the view. Pretty villas dot 
the hills and peer out of luxuriant 
foliage. I found plenty of amusement 
on the beach, in watching the Spaniards, 
who went in to bathe with their cigars 
in their mouths, and who practised with 
much dexterity the art of keeping their 
heads unwet by the highest waves. 
Long trains of mules, loaded with 
screaming and laughing ladies, were 
driven into the most furious part of the 
surf, and there the beauties amused them- 
selves by holding on as long as they 
could against the incoming crests. Biar- 
ritz is still a favorite result for the 
French and Spanish aristocrats. The 
railway scarcely disturbs the tranquil 
seclusion of the place. Towards evening 
a. charming silence pervades the town; 
cool breezes blow inland; semi-tropical 
trees hide the green, delicately-veined 
insides of their leaves, not to turn them 
till the morrow's dew invites. The peas- 
ants gather in groups, and softly sing 
melodies in patois to the gentle music of 
the guitar ; and under the awning of the 



EUROPE tN STORM AND CALM. 



59 



green-latticed cafes the Spanish peddlers, 
who have trudged up from Burgos, or 
Valladolid, offer blankets, long knives 
with beautifully carved handles, and 
scent-bottles from Tangiers. 

On the Spanish coast at San Sebas- 
tian, where Dona Isabel went in her 



are no longer the same. The grave and 
earnest Basque, ignorant but conscien- 
tious and virtuous, salutes the stranger 
with solemn courtesy. Here and there. 
are touches upon a relic of the abortive 
campaigns of successive Don C'arloses. 
Priests saunter slowly by, smoking cigar- 
ettes, and lazily swinging their 
umbrellas. The fields have a neg- 
lected look. San Sebastian is a 
delightful little city, coquettish, 
fresh, flooded with brilliant sun- 
light, set down at the base of lofty 
mountains whose peaks shine like 
blocks of crystal. It extends from 
the pretty bay of La Concha, at 
the mouth of which is the island 
of Santa Clara, to the mouth of 
the Urremea river. Seaward from 




PROCLAIMING THE SPANISH REPUnLIC. 



flight, the sport of bathing goes on until 
even the first days of November. From 
Biarritz to San Sebastian is but an hour's 
ride by diligence, but in that hour the 
traveller feels as if he had in some un- 
accountable manner left Europe behind 
him. Architecture lias changed; the 
costumes of the people by the wayside 
are different ; manners, speech, gestures, 



the promontory of Bilbao to Biarritz one 
sees the waves lap the crags and masses of 
stone, whose yellow and reddish colors 
contrast strangely with the white foam 
dashing now and then over their summits. 
Near San Sebastian one finds valleys fullof 
shade and mystery ; deep gorges through 
which bridle-paths wind in perplexing 
fashion ; pinnacles from which ho can 



60 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



look up to mightier pinnacles beyond. 
Priests, smugglers, muleteers, peasant- 
girls in red and yellow petticoats, gra- 
ciously salute the wanderer ; and if one 
stops at a roadside inn he is treated with 
utmost consideration and honesty. 

On this my first journey to Madrid, 
I thought the railway ran through one 
of the most picturesque and impressive 
countries in the universe. Just before 
arriving at Irun, the frontier town, archi- 
tecture had changed as rapidly as the 
combinations in a pantomime. The 
houses of southern France, well built of 
solid carved stone and with four-cornered 
steep roofs, were exchanged for the glar- 
ing white walls, generally out of repair, 
and the low and sloping roofs of Spanish 
dwellings. From Irun to Burgos the 
scenery was of the wildest. The road 
traverses yawning valleys, runs along the 
edges of precipices, plunges into sombre 
anddeserted plains, winds through passes 
cut out of the solid rock, and pierces the 
hearts of the mountains sixty-nine times 
before it reaches the environs of Madrid. 
Everywhere the beautiful has a mixture 
of rugged grandeur in it. Tunnel suc- 
ceeds tunnel, under great balustrades 
perched on rude, deep-ribbed layers of 
the hardest rock. Sometimes the railway 
line winds* along an embankment which 
gives the traveller a glance up some tre- 
mendous defile, at the end of which blue 
ranges of mountains melt softly into the 
bluest sky. Through the defile winds a 
white strip of road, fringed with foliage, 
and enlivened by a string of mules, car- 
rying merchandise to the nearest town. 
The posadas and haciendas are dirty, and 
the sills of the windows are stained with 
the refuse thrown carelessly out of doors ; 
the walls are hung with tobacco-stalks 
and flags, and the pig reigns supreme in 
the front door. Some of the mountain 
sides which are cultivated are so steep 



that the donkey drawing the primitive 
plough has to press his feet and slide 
down the furrows, dragging plough and 
peasant after him. Agricultural imple- 
ments are of the simplest character. The 
plough is a straight piece of wood shar- 
pened at one end, and fastened roughly to 
a rude harness. Donkeys and dwarf, 
yellow-colored oxen do all tin; work of 
teams. The shepherds along the road 
look two or three centuries out of place, 
as their costume has hardly undergone 
any change since the time of Philip II. 

I did not stop at Miranda or at Bur- 
gos on this journey ; but in later years 
I learned to wonder at the incomparable 
richness of the facade of the Burgos 
cathedral, on every square on the walls 
of which are the marks of the genius of 
the great sculptors of the thirteenth cen- 
tury ; and I could not help marvelling at 
the curious taste which placed this Cath- 
olic wonder in this arid country, where a 
cold wind, half the year, chills the very 
marrow. Approaching the environs of 
Madrid I was struck with the desolate 
character of the country. Here were 
pine forests ; huge rocks which overhung 
narrow paths along mountain sides ; 
caverns in which brigands might hide ; 
little torrents leaping over precipices 
close to the railway. Here were plains 
tilled with rocks shaken into strangest 
forms by volcanic action, and high crags 
shutting out the sunlight. Shortly before 
arriving at the Escurial the route passes 
Las Navas, one of the vilest and most 
dangerous little places in Spain, as I 
found in an excursion from Madrid. 
The houses in Las Navas are built of 
coarse stone, rudely carved. Black swine 
wander freely in and out of them. The 
people are grossly ignorant ; dozens of 
them confessed to me that they had 
never visited Madrid, that they knew 
nothing of polities, and as for reading 



EUROPE US' STORM AND CALM. 



61 



and writing, they were not oven ac- 
quainted with any one who possessed 
these extraordinary accomplishments. 
At Madrid, girls brown as Arabs of- 
fered to the traveller fresh milk in little 
clay pots. A hunter strolled by with a 
hare upon his shoulder, and proposed to 
sell it. A hare may be had for ten cents. 



proceeds across the rocky and uninvit- 
ing country between the main line of 
rail to Madrid and the Escurial. Leav- 
ing the comfortable first-class carriages 
to plod across the waste is not very 
agreeable, but one is well repaid by the 
treasures within the walls. The shep- 
herds, beggars, and priests, who are 




THE ESCURIAL, NEAR MADRID. 



A blight seems to overhang the whole 
country round about. As I wandered 
through these plains towards the frowning 
Escurial, one dark October day, I could 
not help thinking that a curse had fallen 
on the locality where Philip II. lived, 
prayed, and sang praises to the God 
whom he offended while he fancied him- 
self most zealously serving him. The 
impression of blight is heightened as one 



the only persons one encounters, answer 
questions civilly, and point out the cross 
perched on a high rock which marks 
the spot where Philip II. 's dreadful or- 
ders were carried out, where wretches 
were hanged almost daily beneath the 
lowest bit of rock. Until a few years 
past bits of whitened cord, which crum- 
bled as they were dug up. might still be 
found. 



02 



EXJROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



A winding road between high rocks, 
clothed in brown moss, leads one to a 
ruined square, where a dismantled church 
rears its forlorn front. A few steps up 
a steep hill, beside a wall, bring one to 
a. point whence he can see the Eseurial, 
with its immense dome, and the four 
gloomy towers rising at the angles. 
Philip II. built this edifice in the mid- 
dle of the sixteenth century, to replace 
the church of San Lorenzo, which was 
demolished by cannon-balls during the 
siege of San Quentin. The cynical 
imagination of the over-religious archi- 
tects of the period could devise no 
better form for this immense monastic 
palace than that of the gridiron upon 
which the unhappy Lawrence suffered 
martyrdom. The four towers are sup- 
posed to represent the feet, and the royal 
apartments the handle, of this frying- 
instrument. Gloomy and unimpressive 
gardens stretch away on all sides to 
stone walls, which border greenish ponds 
and lakelets. 

The entrance to the edifice is wonder- 
fully impressive. A massive gate leads 
into the great gardens, bringing one face 
to face with a portico of severe simplic- 
ity. At the summit of Dorie columns 
arc six mighty caryatids, representing 
1li" six Kings of Judea, supporting a tri- 
angular portal of immense size. Out of a 
block of granite the principal staircase is 
cut. Tin' church, decorated with Luca 
Giordano's daring frescoes, reminds one 
of the many curious freaks of which 
artists were guilty during the decadence 
of the Italian school. Luca's tranquil 
colors and highly executed designs 
show clearly (he struggles of a great 
artist to rise above the follies and fail- 
ings of his epoch. The rich reliquaries ; 
the delicately chiselled coffers in which 
repose the bones of saints ; the massive 
altar, built of jasper and marble, and 



surrounded with gilded bronze statues of 
Charles V. and Philip II. ; queens and 
infantas, kneeling with closed hands and 
upturned eyes ; (he stalls in precious 
woods; the missals, tilled with Gothic 
vignettes ; heavily and coarsely decorated 
ceilings — produce an effect of confused 
magnificence. In the small chapel in the 
rear the eye is dazzled by Iienvenuto 
Cellini's incomparable sculpture in white 
marble of " Christ upon the Cross.'' In 
the sacristy are innumerable paintings, 
which chill the imagination, but lead 
one to admire the artists. The painting 
by Claudio Cocllo, representing (he pro- 
cession which received the Holy Host 
sent to Philip by the Emperor of Ger- 
many, is astonishingly rich in color. 

Wandering through a, labyrinth of 
cold and gloomy corridors one at last 
reaches a little staircase by which he may 
climb to the dome of the Eseurial and 
look over the vast plain. Ear away out 
of an indistinct mass of buildings rises 
the roof of the Royal Palace in .Madrid. 
To the left one see>. a dense forest . with 
a few straggling hamlets on its edge, 
and at the base of the monastic palace's 
thick and frowning walls lies a village, 
its precipitous streets paved with stones 

set on end. A few wretched trees strug- 
gle for existence in the market-place. 
At a stone fountain's basin, a bevy of 
laughing girls are filling water-jars, and 
some dejected-looking donkeys are 
greedily drinking and whisking their 
tails. 

The Pantheon of the Spanish Kings, 
the great vault of the Eseurial, where 
lie tin' mortal remains of the mighty 
Charles, of Philip II.. HI., and IV.. 
of Charles II. and Charles III., 
of the Queens Isabella and Margaret, 
and Elizabeth of Bourbon, is an un- 
wholesome cellar, from which one is 
glad to escape into the opcu air. Even 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



63 



the sublime and pathetic figure of Christ, 
which surmounts one of the altars, seems 
to bring no ray of tender hope, no 
blessed promise of immortality, into this 
royal charnel-house. It is impressive 
and repulsive at once to look from the 
present into the past, as one does in 
peering into the sarcophagus of one of 
tue greatest of emperors. At the time 
of my visK one could see under the 
glass lid which sealed the cotlin of 
Charles V. the bod}* of the royal 
dead man, but partially covered by its 
shroud. The face was still in an al- 
most perfect state of preservation. One 
nostril and one of the ears, for the eyes 
had crumbled because of contact with 
the air, when the historic cotlin was 
opened, were still visible, and fragments 
of the reddish beard still clung to the 
chin. Philip II. the Terrible is securely 
shut in a black marble sarcophagus, 
ornamented only by a plain plate bear- 
ing his name. One is curious to know 
whether the calm of death gave any 
sweetness to the imperious face of the 
monk and tyrant who scourged Europe 
in the bitterness of his malicious zeal. 

Seeing all his private apartments left 
just as they were when he passed into 
the silences, one almost fears to en- 
counter his spectre walking the narrow 



chambers, or seated in the niche which 
permitted him to hear mass without en- 
tering the chapel, muttering his prayers, 
and nursing his gouty limb, as he sup- 
ported it upon a velvet cushion. One 
could fancy him seated before his little 
wooden table, brooding over the papers 
containing secrets of the state, and 
could almost see his face with grayish- 
blue eyes, with thick and protruding 
under lips, with lean and bony cheeks 
covered with livid skin, with little ears 
which caught the slightest sound, with 
his ugly chin concealed beneath a sym- 
metrical beard ; or one seemed to see 
him musing in his quaint old chair, its 
back studded with copper nails, riveted 
in the leathern bands ; and to watch him 
as his hands wander over the breast of 
his velvet doublet feeling for the chap- 
let, which so rarely quitted his person. 
This terrible mocking spectre of 
Philip the Tyrant seems to pursue the 
visitor as he roams through the museum, 
to which an uncivil monk grudgingly 
admits him to look at the paintings by 
Ribera, Jiordans, Bosch, and Tinto- 
retto, and does not quit him until he has 
gained the open air and left the village 
and the monastery of the Escurial far 
behind him. 



64 



EUROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIX. 

In Revolution Time. — Saragossa. — A Quaint Old Spanish City. — The Protest against the Reestab- 
lishnieut of Monarchy. — A Vigorous Fight. — The Church of the Virgin Del Pilar. — On the 
Way lo Valencia. — Down to the Mediterranean. — Alicante. — The Grao. — Getting into Valencia 
before the Bombardment. — An Adventurous Promenade. — Crossing the Streets under Fire. — 
A Barricaded Hotel. — Street Fighting in Earnest. — Republicans ami Regulars. 



MADRID is usually a disappoint- 
ment to the stranger. Saragossa 
is a revelation. The approaches to it are 
singularly beautiful. The train left me 
outside the walls, anil I walked through 
the olive-bordered avenues, finding with 
some difficulty the gate which led into 
the main part of the town. As I ap- 
proached this gate I at onee perceived 
that the government had at hist got an 
iron hand on Saragossa. The narrow 
and quaint streets were crowded with 
soldiers. Olliecrs, in their glittering blue 
and red uniforms, passed up and down, 
reviewing little squads of men, who. re- 
ceiving their orders, went out to parade 
to solemn drum-beats in certain sections. 
It was nine o'clock in the morning, but 
little movement was visible among the 
inhabitants. Sunburnt figures stood 
here and there beneath the Gothic and 
Moorish door-ways talking quietly to- 
gether ; but when more than half a 
dozen had gathered the soldiers arrived 
and dispersed them. When Saragossa 
was the capital of the kingdom of Ara- 
gon the people manifested the same 
spirit that they had newly shown in this 
insurrection of 1869, in saying to their 
king, " We, who are your equals and as 
powerful as you, elect you king on the 
condition that you guard our laws and 
our liberties, and that there shall always 
lie between you and us some one more 



powerful than you; if not, we will not 
have you." The Aragonese of seven 
hundred years ago understood the value 
of constitutional liberty even better than 
those of to-day, and practised it more 
forcibly. When Augustus Caesar came 
to Spain he looked upon the then ob- 
scure little town as one destined to a 
famous place in history, and christened 
it Ca?sarea Augusta. This, in due time, 
the Goths, when they came to levy con- 
tributions on the then wealthy town, 
called Caesar Agosta ; and later came the 
Arabs, who softened the name into Sar- 
acosta, but who hardened the manners 
of the people until they were fittest rep- 
resentatives of the haughty rule of the 
Moors in Spain. 

So powerful was the city that Charle- 
magne himself trembled when he hat! 
paused before her gates, antl, lifting the 
siege, went away still bleeding from 
the scratches received at Roncesvalles. 
Then came the Christian kings, slowly 
invading Navarre and Aragon, and at 
last, by their valor, they captured to 
Catholicism the Zaragoza (pronounced 
Tharagotha) of to-day. In the city 
there are but few hints of modernism, 
such as here and there a noble square, or 
a promenade planted with trees and or- 
namented with statues, or a barrack, 
in which the soldiers just tit this time 
were uudulv numerous. But these few 



EUROPE IX STOR.V AXD CALM. 



65 



innovations of modernism were soon 
left behind. I plunged into a labyrinth 
of narrow streets, where overhanging 
roofs nearly kissed each other, and 
where, nevertheless, every house had its 
balconies in the upper stories. Antonio, 
smoking a cigarette on his balcony, could 
have tumbled the ashes into the dinner- 
plate of his neighbor, tranquilly eating 
under his awning across the way. The 
shops are all very primitive in their 
character, and some of them Oriental in 
their disdain of modern furniture. Many 
of the houses in the town are so old 
that they are propped up with huge 
beams. The great cathedral of Our 
Lady of the Pillar, known as one of the 
most celebrated Catholic shrines in the 
world, has shown much evidence of 
crumbling, and the devotees nearly died 
of fear lest it might fall during the 
cannonading of the October revolu- 
tion. The history of this church is most 
remarkable. All the inhabitants who 
believe in their religion believe also that 
" Our Lady of the Pillar " was founded 
by St. James, the traditional Santiago, 
forty years only after the beginning of 
this Christian era. The old legend is 
still preserved in these words: "And 
Jesus said, ' My dearly beloved mother, 
I wish you to go to Saragossa, and order 
St. James to erect a temple in your 
honor, where you shall be invoked for 
all time.' " This divinely imposed duty 
St. James is supposed to have duly ac- 
complished before his famous pilgrimage 
to Jerusalem, and the church has grown 
to gigantic proportions from the acorn of 
the little chapel and pillar, on which the 
Virgin's figure was raised, so says the 
legend, eighteen hundred years ago. 
The dark-eyed women, as well as the 
lame, lousy, and dirty old beggars, of 
Saragossa all daily kiss a little piece of 
wood fixed in the cathedral wall, and 



said to be the only fragment left of 
the real pillar. Around this church, 
which stands not far from the banks 
of the Ebro, was some desperate fight- 
ing in this October struggle, and the 
blood-stains in several corners were still 
visible at the time of my visit. 

Here, as in Valencia and elsewhere, 
the collision between the peasantry, who 
had invaded the town, and the soldiers 
representing the monarchical govern- 
ment, was brought on exclusively by the 
demand of the soldiers that the peasants 
should lay down their arms. Most of 
the peasants had been successful in their 
determination to retain their weapons, 
and had retired with all the honors of 
war. But a few had been taken, and 
the picture of the march of these prison- 
ers through mute, solemn Saragossa 
clings in my memor}'. The people had 
postponed the festival annually held to 
honor their patron saint, because the 
aroma of blood still lingered over the 
town. At the very portals of their 
church were dark stains, telling of 
human sacrifices. At the Duke's gate 
curious crowds were lingering, wild- 
eyed, round the spot where a general 
and a dozen soldiers had fallen, pierced 
by the bullets fired by workmen from a 
priest's house. The government of 
General Prim was disdainfully releasing 
the few prisoners which it had taken. 
In front marched a dozen stalwart sol- 
diers bronzed, dirty, and fierce ; behind 
straggled perhaps two hundred insurrec- 
tionists, their wives running beside them, 
embracing them or weeping in sileut joy. 
A weird, fantastic set were these fellows, 
with a tinge of the old Arabic blood in 
their veins. The government had given 
them back their long knives, which were 
thrust in their sashes, or served to pin the 
knots of the gayly colored handkerchiefs 
which covered their heads. They shuffled 



66 



EUROPE IN STtiRM AND CALM. 



forward to the grand plaza, aud before 
the famous Convent of Jerusalem, whore 
Spain's most beautiful daughters spend 
their lives in honoring the Virgin, 
they were drawn up in grim order, 
ragged as Falstaffs army. With dis- 
grace and with rage in their swarthy 
faces they listened to the order which 
forbade them, under heavy penalties, to 
take up anus again, and then shambled 
away to the churches to kneel and 
silently pray for one more chance. 
Those of the inhabitants of Saragossa, 
the veritable citizens of the city, who 
had participated in the tight, did not es- 
cape so easily. New arrests were con- 
stantly going on, and, when I left, the 
towns-people scarcely dared to open their 
shops. Nearly all the proud Aragoncse 
who were wounded to the death in the 
second day's fighting managed to crawl 
to their bouses and die at home, proud 
of having saved their bodies from the 
soldiers. One man, wounded in a 
dozen places, crawled on to the roof of 
his domicile, and maintained from it a 
deadly tire upon tin 1 soldiers until be 
had slain seven. When at last lie felt 
death's band at bis throat be jumped 
down into the street, falling heavily 
upon the piled-up stones, and was used 
as an additional breastwork or a barri- 
cade for bis companions. This barri- 
cade, near the Duke's gate, resisted the 
lire of artillery for nearly two boms. 
These same 1 men who leaped upon the 
cannons, knife in hand, when they were 
forced to retreat to the barricades, 
heaped up the stones and beams as fast 
as they were torn down by the shots. 

At Saragossa it is the custom, as in 
some parts of the Orient, to allow luna- 
tics, who are not positively uncontrol- 
lable, to wander about the streets, min- 
gling freely with the sane. The custom 
of making prisoners of God's unfor- 



tunate has not crept into this half- 
barbaric country. On the evening of the 
first uprising in Saragossa a party of 
insane people were passing through the 
streets with the straw which they had 
been taught to plait into mats and 
panniers. One of them, to whom 1 had 
the honor of being presented during my 
stay in the town, had been excited by 
the news of the lighting, and had been 
seen a number of times in the thick of 
the fray. 

More fighting was impossible in Sara- 
gossa. The soldiers swarmed every- 
where, and I desired to press on to 
Catalonia. But the railway agents re- 
fused a ticket to Barcelona, saying that 
the road was open only half-way. The 
rebels had that very morning burned for 
the second time a railway bridge, and 
strolling bands along the line had com- 
mitted numerous crimes. The last local 
trains bad narrowly escaped stoppage, 
aud I was compelled to return to Madrid. 
Six of the revolutionary Saragossa news- 
papers had been suppressed; the official 
journals gave only glaring lies about the 
insurrection, aud 1 returned to the cap- 
ital convinced that all the interest now 
centred on Barcelona and Valencia. 

At Madrid the news from Valencia 
was meagre. The sweet Mediterranean 
town, the city of the Cid. surrounded by 
lovely gardens and luxuriant fields, was 
known to be in the hands of the in- 
surrectionists, and the authorities hail 
threatened a siege. Every morning a 
perturbed crowd waited at the railway 
station to hear the news, and each day 
they retired unsatisfied. Trim had 
suppressed even private telegrams. The 
journals were ominously silent, but the 
military trains were laden. " Impossi- 
ble to go there by rail," said one. " Im- 
possible to go at all." said another. 
" Bombarded two days ago," said those 



EUROPE IN STOHM AND. CALM. 



67 



who should have been well-informed. 
" In possession of the insurgents," still 
asserted the equally reliable. This much 
was known : The rebels were at least 
eighteen thousand strong in a city of two 
hundred thousand people; had taken the 
great market-place ; had installed them- 
selves therein, and refused to be ousted. 
What were they ? A mad mass of infu- 
riated towns-people, who by stratagem 
had possessed the greater part of the 
town, torn up the pavements, and re- 
fused to yield. Headed by the republican 
deputy Guerrero, they were well armed 
and equipped. At first eight thousand 
troops had gone forward, next twelve 
thousand, — many said sixteen thousand, 
— under General Alamenos. I took the 
evening train for Encina, whence a 
branch line leads to Valencia. 

The memories of the next few days 
rise vividly before me. I can see the 
mass of staring faces at the railway sta- 
tion, as, iu company with him of famous 
Abyssinian and African prestige, whose 
name is like a perfume to all lovers of 
journalistic enterprise, I take my place 
in the night express, bound fur the shores 
of the Mediterranean. This is my first 
meeting with Stanley, and a strange one. 
with the spirit of competition lightly 
roused, so as to bring into our acquaint- 
ance just that spice of jealousy which 
makes us both alert. In the train are 
parents, and husbands, and brothers 
going to Valencia, to bring loved ones 
away from the horrors which are always 
associated with a Spanish siege. So we 
fare forward, past Aranjuez, where there 
is a noble royal residence ami town, to 
Albacete. As morning dawns, with that 
glorious poetry of sky only known in 
Spain, we come into the wonderful region 
of paradoxes between Albacete and Al- 
mansa. Imagine fertile fields stretching 
miles along the railway line, but framed 



in the backgrounds by mountains barren 
as the pyramids, acclivities that rise 
superb above yawning precipices. 

The vineyards are numerous, and dark- 
haired, bare-limbed women are plucking 
the purplish-blue clusters of grapes from 
dwarf vines, that bend heavily under the 
pressure of the vintage. At mauy points 
huge rocks, rising in perpetual affront 
to heaven, are crowned with castles, 
which, in the sun's golden haze, seem to 
melt their outlines into the net-work of 
nature, and to be but a freak of her fancy. 
The well-made roads, smooth, white, 
and suffocatingly dusty, trend away in 
serpentine curves to the bases of the 
mountain rocks, and are bordered at long 
distance by low houses, whose white walls 
and tiled roofs glitter in the sun. The 
muleteers and (lie peasant women are 
singing, or rather droning, while they 
ride or work, and naked children disport 
in the glow of the morning without 
shame. The costume of the peasants 
along the route is at first quiet in color 
and sober in arrangement ; but, as we 
draw towards the south and the sea, it is 
scarlet, and green, and yellow, in glaring 
contrast, and falling in graceful folds 
close to the form. 

At seven in the morning we come to 
Encina, a small junction just below the 
large town of Almansa, where the Va- 
leueian railway branches off. lit re then: 
are hordes of soldiers, and on the moun- 
tains we can see the vigilantes protecting 
the railway. The wild-looking peasants 
come up with sneering curiosity, if any 
inquiry be made about Valencia, to say 
thai the Republicans have captured it 
long ago, and that they will never sur- 
render. But the railway to Valencia is 
not in order. No trains have passed for 
several days, aud skirmishing along the 
line is frequent. Is there uo way to send 
a message, or to go to Valencia ? Yes ! 



68 



El'ROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



We may go to Alicante, and along the 
Mediterranean const ; from Alicante u 
Bteamer will sail that afternoon. So we 
take m wheezy train upon the branch 
railway, and are soon among the palrn- 
trees. Towards ten o'clock we pass into 
a huge ravine between two ledges of jag- 
ged rock, the railway running on a nar- 
row bank. We see beyond, at the opening, 
a bridge over a yawning chasm and a 
host of figures clustering around it. The 
train comes to a halt. The engineer 
goes back to talk to the guard, ami half 
an hour is lost before it is decided that 
the figures must be those of soldiers 
rather than of insurgent enemies. We 
move slowly into the midst of a company 
of the civil guard, who have improvised a 
habitation of boughs at the bridge's side, 
and are watching the structure night and 
day. At last, as we are leaving a little 
station among the mountains, we turn a 
curve, and before us lies the placid Med- 
iterranean, its purple water rippling softly 
to the shores, and in the distance is a 
huge acclivity, around whose top hovers a 
glorious breezy wreath of mist, — one of 
those fragrant heaven breaths, to which 
only the waves of the Mare Tyrrhenian 
cequor can give shape and substance. 

Below lies Alicante in the slumbrous 
noon. Along I he coast, where the sleepy 
surf comes rolling slowly in, are groves 
of palm. Barelegged fishermen are push- 
ing out their boats. The long quay, 
guarded by soldiers, runs out to sea ; and 
at the base edge towers a gigantic rock 
with its antique Moorish citadel. Here 
we find that the boat will leave for Va- 
lencia at three o'clock, also that the fight- 
ing has been brisk there for the last two 
days ; now a surrender is talked of. 
Meantime, in the port, we find a noble 
bark, of American build, the William 
Wilcox of New York, commanded by 
Philip Johnson, of New Bedford ; and, 



visiting it, receive gracious attention 
from the stanch captain and his young 
wife, whose first trip beyond seas is to 
agitated Spain. 

As we steam out of the port that after- 
noon, in a boat crowded with Spanish 
officers going to the front, the American 
banner flutters up to the mast-head of 
the William Wilcox and down again in 
graceful salute to us, much to the aston- 
ishment of all the olive-complexion ed, 
jauntily uniformed Spaniards round 
about us. Next morning the boat is 
lying in the harbor of Valencia. 

The Grao, Valencia's port of entry, is 
three miles from the city itself, and has 
a well-sheltered harbor, with a little town 
built along its banks. We land at seven 
o'clock, and find the streets crowded 
with men, women, and children, whom 
fright has forced out of Valencia. The 
carriages which usually run from the 
port to the city are drawn up in a long 
line, near the avenue leading to the en- 
trance, and it is with difficulty that we can 
prevail on the driver to take us so far as 
the outer line of the siege. " The firing 
is to commence at eight," he says. " We 
should hardly reach there before then, 
and we might be shot by the insurrectos." 
For eight days the lighting has been 
growing more severe daily. Who are 
masters of the situation? The insur- 
rectos, decidedly. 

We drive up a long avenue bordered 
with sycamores. On our way we pass 
many women weeping bitterly, and bend- 
ing almost double under the hastily 
prepared burdens of their household 
goods. This seems to indicate that the 
bombardment is beginning, and the bare 
suggestion of this so frightens our driver 
that he refuses to go farther, and, turn- 
ing his horse's nose to the hedge, invites 
us to get out. Nothing can persuade 
him, and we find ourselves in a hubbub 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



69 



of cavalry and infantry, teams loaded 
with furniture, going out under flags of 
truce, ami hundreds of people sitting by 
the roadside, their faces turned in listen- 
ing attitude towards the town. A com- 
pany of Lancers gallops up to us, gives us 
a suspicious glance, aud passes on. Fi- 
nally we are told to ask permission of a 
certain officer to pass into the town. He 
shrugs his shoulders to his ears, spreads 
out his hands, says he will not hinder us, 
and we pa^s in, carrying our own baggage. 
Our first idea is to seek the Fonda de 
Paris, — a well-known hotel, standing in 
the Calle del Mar (the street of the sea) , 
where we think we can learn how far it 
will be safe for us to go. We look for 
some one to take our baggage, and show 
us the way ; but every person appealed 
to makes a frightened face, says that the 
firing has begun, and that it is unsafe. 
The suspense of waiting in this mass of 
humanity is unbearable. At last we 
appeal to a dare-devil-looking boy, who, 
without comments, takes up the travel- 
ling-bags, and goes forward. We are 
continually jostled by soldiers, running 
from point to point, dodging behind cor- 
ners, casting suspicious glances at win- 
dows or balconies above. We have now 
entered a labyrinth of narrow streets, 
like those I had seen at Saragossa. The 
brave boy, who runs ahead of us, bend- 
ing under the weight of our baggage, 
stops short, and compresses his lips, as 
he hears a sharp thud around the corner, 
and sees the soldiers rushing back. We 
are in the midst of a guerilla warfare, 
where shots are fired from balconies and 
from house-tops ; where a chance bullet 
may meet us, and send life vaporing 
before we can defend ourselves. From 
time to time the boy halts, says huskily, 
" Fuego" (firing), and then, like a little 
lion at bay, turns anew to seek another 
route to the Fonda de Paris, 



At last we come into a long, narrow 
avenue, leading to a square. Sud- 
denly we are pulled into a door by a 
friendly citizen, aud the boy turns pale; 
but my companion, who has seen battles 
numerous, tramps on ahead, aud we follow. 

We arrive in the square. We hear 
the dull roar away up in the city, aud 
the ping of wandering bullets. People 
follow us with their ga/.c ; but, at the 
entrance of another long avenue, we 
hear above us, at the windows, bauds 
softly clapped, and soft hisses. Again 
the boy turns, almost crying with fright 
and determination. We cross the square ; 
we try another street, and push on des- 
perately. We hear shooting close at 
hand. We enter still another square. 
Here great preparations are going on. 
Soldiers crowd the side opposite us, but 
there is one yawning gap, — the entrance 
to a street, which no one enters, and no 
one stands in front of. We are in the 
Plaza de la C'ongregaciou. A soldier 
stares at us. He sees we are foreigners, 
and says, in broken French. " Crawl 
Dieu! Don't go across the square, or 
you will be shot." But while he is talk- 
ing my comrade aud the boy step bravely 
across the square, and I rush after them. 
A soldier at the corner raises his musket 
warningly. What is it? Something be- 
yond the corner. 

A barricade ! 

To reach the hotel we must brave this 
barricade. We cannot stay in the street, 
so we make three leaps ; and, as Stanley 
turns the corner of the little avenue 
which leads behind the hotels, three bul- 
lets fly past, and strike in the Valencia 
Bank windows. We are hurried into a 
back door, amid a crowd of soldiery, 
and a little French landlord comes for- 
ward to congratulate us on our escape; 
for the insurgents had sworn to shoot 
any one who crossed that street. 



70 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



We press the poor boy's hand, aud 
cannot but admire him. He takes shel- 
ter with lis for a short time. 

This incident illustrates well the manner 
of the siege, and the struggle which has 
been in progress seven days when we 
arrive ; not a siege with artillery at long 
distance, nor one where lines are dis- 
tinctly drawn, but one where every street 
and house are beleaguered. This ave- 
nue, for instance, is narrow, long, and 
straight. At its end is n barricade, and 
in the houses on each side are at least 
six hundred soldiers. This is repeated 
two or three streets further on ; but away 
up in the city's centre, in the great mar- 
ket-place, and the twenty-eight streets 
leading from it, the Republicans hold 
everything. Long-range shooting is all 
that they have to fear. Every private 
house is a fortress, insurgent or govern- 
mental. The landlord takes us over the 
hotel, shows us furniture riddled with bul- 
lets, and his mattresses all in use, to pro- 
tect the soldiers who OCCupyhis balconies. 
The side windows look on the barricade, 
aud near them soldiers are crouching 
expectant. This is in the first story. 
In the next still more destruction: mir- 
rors smashed, curtains in shreds, and 
tables in fragments. We are given a 
room on the third floor, fronting on the 
street we have just crossed. We open 
our window cautiously, and look across 
the way. The large stone building is the 
Valencian Credit Institution. Soldiers 
are firing from the balconies of this bank, 
and dodging the bullets from the barri- 
cade. In the square below, through 
which we have just come, a regiment 
is quietly arriving. 

The Valencian Republicans, including 
the mountaineers, who have come down 
from their homes to protest against the 
restoration of monarch}, are from twelve 
to fifteen thousand strong, commanded 



by a Republican deputy lately withdrawn 

from the Cortes. In and around the 
town are ten thousand irregular troops, 
General Alamenos commanding. Don 
Francis de la Riviera, captain-general, 
is a vacillating old man. full of much 
caution. The sub-commandant ,, Don 
Martin Rosalcs, is energetic, so says 
our landlord ; adding that the light which 
has lasted so long may continue for 
weeks, or, so strange are the caprices 
of insurrection in Spain, may be ended 
in ten minutes. 

The Republicans here, as in Saragossa, 
arc mostly pajanos, or peasants. They 
are all of one type, with swarthy faces, 
olive complexions, strong limbs, and are 
clad in a curious costume, trousers reach- 
ing only to the knee, long hose, and s:m- 
dalsof undressed hide. A handkerchief 
is bound about their heads, and huge 
blanket* of brilliant coloring are slung 
across their shoulders. They never wear 
coats, hats, or 1 ts, and are so sun- 
burnt that they look like their African 
neighbors, or like the Apaches of our 
American plains. 

The barricades are only shoulder high, 
made of a double row of paving-stones, 
and protected at the top by a. few beams 
and well-tilled sacks of sand or grain. 
But there are so many, each corner being 
made available, that even were the sol- 
diery to reduce one, as, for instance, this 
before our street, they would have to 
take twenty, forty, or fifty behind it be- 
fore they could possess the town. The 
dull, dead roar, that breaks in now and 
then on the comparative silence at each 
end of Valencia, comes from the outside, 
whence General Alamenos is throwing 
shell into a barricade.. Now and then a 
shot from a rebel cannon comes whizzing 
into the square, on which we can look, 
and we can race confusion among the sol- 
diers, and .sometimes a faintly pal pi tat- 



EUROPE IN STORM A.YD CALM. 



71 



ing mass, from which surges iife-blood, 
staining the canvas thrown over it. By 
and by a great number of troops are 
massed in the plaza, and we hear inces- 
sant bullet-firing from the adjacent bar- 
ricade. In the square the buglers are 
sounding the charge, and Prim's Hunters 
— the scum of Madrid, yet the most dar- 
ing soldiery in Spain : reckless devils in 
dirty uniforms, with straw sandals to 
their stockiugless feet — come up slowly 
into line. Other companies fall in be- 
hind, and it is plain that we are to have 
a battle. All this time the soldiers do 
not face death at the barricade in our 
street. They mass together in front of 
the college in the plaza, and two bat- 
talions go charging towards the centre 
of the town. Those who come running 
back wounded bring stories of the bar- 
ricades. Irresolute, all go on. The 
government volunteers, the small por- 
tion of the mountaineers who have not 
taken part in the insurrection, have been 
captured in a body, and their noses have 
been cut off, their ears slit, and their 
bodies piled on the barricades. So the 
survivors come back trembling with fear, 
bearing their dead on litters and crossed 
muskets, and it is getting gradually 
towards dusk. 

As the church clocks are striking 
seven the senior bishop of the diocese 
and some of the city authorities go to 
General Alamenos with a flag of truce, 
and pray for some arrangement to stay 
the flow of blood. The commission is 
received with the greatest kindness by 
Alamenos ; but in their passage through 
the streets the would-be peacemakers are 
saluted with hisses from many of the bar- 
ricades. No arrangement is reached, 
and the commission goes back late in the 
evening, mortified and alarmed. So we 
must wait the morrow in our fortress, 



and meantime get a retrospect of the 
seven previous days. 

As soon as the order commanding 
the restoration of arms by the Republi- 
cans to the military authorities is made 
Guerrero, the Republican seceder from 
the Cortes, visits the captain-general, and 
tells him that he must lie responsible for 
any acts of violence provoked by the 
order. The barricades rise as if by 
magic, and four attacking columns, 
formed by the military authorities, on 
the next morning, the 8th of October, 
start by different routes for the great 
market-square, where the insurrection- 
ists are in possession. The troops suf- 
fer severely by the hostile fire from the 
houses along the way, and are almost 
inclined to retreat. But they succeed in 
placing artillery in another square, that 
of Santa Cataleua, not far from the mar- 
ket, and demolish one barricade. Upon 
this the sharp-shooters pick off the 
officers until there is absolutely none left 
to command, and the artillery retreat in 
disorder. 

A second attack follows, for the gov- 
ernment forces are confident of easy vic- 
tory ; but they are soon convinced to 
the contrary. A bravo meets the 
colonel of the first advancing regi- 
ment, and discharges a revolver into 
his face. Irregular firing then begins 
from the houses on all sides, and a sec- 
ond retreat follows. Yet the same col- 
umns finally rally and get possession of 
the telegraph offices, not far from the 
Bourse ; from thence they traverse the 
streets behind the market under an ap- 
palling fire from windows and from the 
roofs. They succeed in occupying one 
or two of these streets, but soon find 
themselves besieged instead of besiegers, 
as the Republicans have shut them in on 
every side. 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 



CHATTER SEVEN. 



The Nine Days' Fiirht in Valencia. — Alamenos anil the Bomhardment. — The Insurgents and their 
Tactics. -Departure of the Consuls. — Picturesque and Romantic Episode. — An Interrupted 
Breakfast. - Meeting of the Brothers. — The End of the Struggle. — Scenes in the Market-place. — 
In the Cathedral after the Battle. — Castelar and his Endeavors for Liberty. -Spanish Politics 
since 1869. — Spanish Characteristics. — The Religious Passion Plays. The Sublime and the 
Ridiculous in Religion. 



THE third struggle, on the 8th of Oc- 
tober, occurs when six companies 
attempt to occupy the theatres and to 
approach the market. The seventh de- 
tachment, consisting of two hundred 
men, comes up an hour afterwards, — the 
artillery firing over litem, — to carry hy 
assault two barricades in the small streets 
leading into the market. The battle 
continues after dark, and is horrible. 
Seventy-five or eighty soldiers are killed 
during the last half-hour, and this awa- 
kening the authorities to the fact that 
resistance to the death is determined on, 
they draw off the badly cut-up troops, 
and concentrate them during the night 
at ten different points, four of which are 
in the immediate neighborhood of the 
Fonda de Paris, and a fifth, the Fonda 
itself. It is said that there were eight 
hundred soldiers killed in the first day's 
fighting. 

This nitty be exaggerated, although 
the American consul thought he could 
verify it. The 9th brings no fighting, 
but irregular firing all day, the troops 
being too much disorganized to move. 
On the 10th couriers are sent to Ali- 
cante and to Madrid to demand re- 
inforcements, and the slaughter by the 
firing from both sides is kept up irregu- 
larly until evening, when large reinforce- 
ments arrive. On the 11th forces pour 
in by steamers and march over the 



broken rail routes. They are fought 
desperately on the outskirts of the city, 
and there is much slaughter. The 12th, 
13th, and 14th see no actual encounter. 
but on the night of the 12th a party of 
daring Republicans having attempted a 
surprise, they are fallen on and massa- 
cred. On the 1 4 til Alamenos. receiving 
extensive reinforcements, is ready for 
the reduction of the city. Then comes 
the Peace Commission on the 15th, as 
alluded to. 

Sixty officers were killed in the seven 
days before our arrival, and many of 
them were great losses to the Spanish 
army. Prim's volunteers and one or 
two other fine regiments were badly cut 
up. I saw, after the surrender, a group 
of them pointing out the ambuscade 
where several of their comrades had been 
killed. And we had arrived at the ninth 
day of this terrible episode of civil war. 

All night the insurgents watch in the 
barricades ; all night the soldiers sleep on 
their arms. Alamenos has got the tele- 
graph working to Madrid, and its tem- 
porary station erected in a bull-ring, and 
receives news that fresh troops will be 
on hand in the morning. New pleas for 
caution come from the timid Cortes in 
Madrid: but the generals now announce 
as sure to take place at ten o'clock on the 
ninth day, if surrender is not accom- 
plished by that time, the bombardment 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



T6 




7! 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



which was threatened when we arrived. 
We (-in hum go on our balconies with 
little fear ; hostilities are by mutual con- 
sent suspended after sunset. The rough 
mountaineers throw themselves on the 
sands and sleep, and th<' soldiers of the 
government are only too glad of respite. 
An odor of < I > -;i < 1 bodies is perceptible on 
the night air. For eight days the streets 
have not been cleaned; and in many 
places bodies are lying in heaps as they 
fell. Now and then a strange light 
(lares u)) the sky over towards the mar- 
ket-place. It comes from some burning 
house tired by the troops. In the pale 
moonlight we sometimes catch a gleam 
of the white folds of a Hag of truce, pre- 
ceding a load of household stores ; some- 
times a white-bonneted sister of charity 
glides by, bearing a heavy bundle of 
lint and bandages. In the plaza the 
old captain-general sits, near the foun- 
tain, smoking, and earnestly discussing 
the situation with a few officers. 

We sleep soundly that night ; even the 
tramp of soldiers through the corridors 
does not awaken us. Morning dawns, 
fiery-red, warm, almost airless. At 
seven we look out. As far as we can 
see, nothing but compact masses of 
soldiers. The commotion is intense. 
Ah! there is the British flag, upheld by 
the English consul. The English resi- 
dents are leaving the town in proces- 
sion, under a flag of truce. The consul 
shakes the captain-general's hand, and 
bids him farewell. Presently come the 
women and children. Each one bears 
those of their household possessions 
which they can ill-afford to leave behind. 
I'.y and by the French consul comes to 
our hotel for the delegation of Frenchmen 
who wish to leave. The bombardment is 
to begin in half anhour. From the bank 
opposite, officers look out and direct 
their men. Bugles sound everwhere. 



The deadly street is vacant once more. 
Flags of truce now appear, and it is ap- 
parent that a parley is going to be held. 

Crash ! a tremendous volley breaks 
from the barricade. Suddenly several 
prisoners are brought into the square, 
and kicked brutally along towards the 
prison. It is eight o'clock, and the first 
flag of truce is to be sent to the barri- 
cades. An officer commands a soldier 
to go forward with the white emblem of 
conciliation. The man hesitates. ll An- 
da!" ((io on ! ), says the officer, striking 
him with his sword-hilt. At last the man 
moves. A bullet whizzes past him : still 
he goes on. He is met half-way up the 
street by a tall, swarthy youth with 
coal-black flowing hair. The two wind 
the flag, which is a sheet, around their 
shoulders, and thus insurgent and be- 
sieger, with true Spanish sense of the 
graceful and aesthetic, come back together 
to the square. 

The rebel bows gracefully to the offi- 
cers, listens to the terms proposed, — 
"surrender without conditions." — un- 
winds himself out of the sheet, and turns 
on his heel to go back. As soon as he 
reaches the barricade defiance in flame 
and bullets bursts from the rifles of the 
men. 

Another truce ; and now it is again 
announced that if surrender is not ef- 
fected at ten o'clock bombardment will 
be continued until every stone is blown 
from every barricade. At the same 
time a charge of live thousand troops is 
arranged to come up through each 
street. The thunder in the market-place 
grows louder and louder. 

We wait anxiously until ten. The 
insurgents are now firing round shot, 
and chips of stone, heavy enough for 
two men to lift, fly from the Valencian 
Bank's handsome front. Despite these 
formidable missiles the fat old sub-corn- 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



75 



mandant walks across the street, shield- 
ing his licit so that the rebels cannot see 
it, buttoning his coat, and waving an- 
other white flag. It seems almost as if 
we were the besieged. 

But the sappers and miners, although 
we do not know it, are getting into the 
town's centre, and if we could get news 
in our hostelry, we should learn that 
eight hundred or one thousand insurgents 
have already fled. Alamcnos therefore 
counsels his artillery-men to have 
patience. At eleven an attack is or- 
ganized in our square, and just as we 
are wild with excitement, in anticipation 
of a battle under our very noses, there 
is a knock at our door. Are we to be 
compelled to fly? 

No, indeed ! It is the cheeky little 
French landlord, pen in hand, saving, 
" Gentlemen, breakfast is ready." 

In the barricaded dining-room one 
window is open, and through it we see 
at least one thousand soldiers crowding 
through a big hole. We snatch some 
bread and wine, and rush back to our 
rooms to hear and see what we may. A 
wild rush of soldiery, a sound like rapid 
hammering on some hollow substance, are 
followed by cheers too tremulous to be in- 
spiring, but lather husky ; and, horrified, 
we look out at the risk of our heads. 
The charge is over : the soldiers have 
vanished up a side street. They could 
not take the barricade in front. Six 
men there could keep six hundred at 
bay, and the bloody litters coming back 
testify to the steadiness of the aim of 
those mountaineers who boast that they 
can kill a pigeon with a rifle-ball. 

Again a hill. One, two, three 
o'clock ! At least twenty flags of truce 
have been exchanged. Why does not 
the bombardment begin in earnest? All 
at once, as the hour of four approaches, 
there is a simultaneous rush of people 



and soldiers from the square. The sun- 
burnt fellows in the windows opposite 
us brandish their guns with Spanish 
enthusiasm. Can it be that the town 
has surrendered? The barricade is 
covered with soldiers, but they are not 
lighting. Heaven and earth cannot keep 
the curiosity of mortals suppressed in 
such a case. We rush downstairs. The 
insurgents at the barricade have sur- 
rendered, — conditions, that they be 
allowed to go free ; and the soldiers are 
knocking down the stones with the butts 
of their muskets. We go out and are 
borne along in the press, reaching the 
spot which, twenty minutes before, live 
thousand soldiers could not have faced. 
A rare and dramatic incident, not with- 
out its frequent parallel in our own civil 
war, is the cause of surrender here. 
The soldiers make the attack, and are 
falling rapidly, when the leader of the 
insurgents hears a familiar voice. He 
leaps forward and stands amid the 
whistling bullets. His brother, whom 
he has not seen for eight years, is calling 
to him. That brother's voice brings the 
black-haired insurrectionist to the ground 
outside the barricade. He leaps among 
the soldiers, clasps his brother in his 
arms, and weeps and laughs by turns. 
The insurgents stand irresolute, and the 
key-note of the siege and surrender of 
Valencia has been struck. The govern- 
ment soldier tells hi3 brother, captain of 
the insurgents, to withdraw his men and 
they shall all go free. " I myself," savs 
he, with a charming lack of discipline, 
'■will respond for their liberty." The 
two brothers, arm in arm, sit down upon 
the curb-stone to look each other in the 
face, and to recover their senses. 

The word that the outer barricade lias 
surrendered has passed up into the town, 
yet there is a violent resistance at the 
next one beyond. When we reach it, 



76 



EUROPE IN KT<>UM AND CALM. 



at half-past four, the soldiers arc build- 
ins fires t<> burn out the blood-stains. 
Carefully we go round corners, where a 
few moments before we had heard 
firing, only to see the proud Republican 
peasants marching away with their heads 
creel, and their rifles tightly grasped in 
their hands. At times that day the 
market-place of Valencia had been a hell 
upon earth. At dye in the afternoon 
we arc standing among the insurgents 
in its centre, and not a shot is fired. 
The Exchange is tilled with temporary 
prisoners, who can hardly be persuaded 
to lay down their arms; lmt as fast as 
they do deliver them up the soldiers 
take them, and pile them in the cellars 
of the strongest houses. The mountain- 
eers arc not to lie urged to surrender 
their rifles, as they might renew the 
struggle if pressed too hard for con- 
ditions. The grand old church of San 
Juan is frightfully scarred and torn. 
The huge portal oyer the statue of the 
Virgin is rent almost in twain. The 
scattered trees in the market-place are 
cut in two. A wooden building is as 
full of holes as a sieve. The great 
fountain is almost ruined. There are 
tenor fifteen barricades in a straight line 
through the place. The streets radiat- 
ing from it arc very narrow, and each one 
is doubly and trebly fortified. It seems 
as if no force could have ever taken 
the position without first destroying the 
town by shell. 

The citizens, so long imprisoned, 
those in the centre not having been able to 
Mv from the expected bombardment, run 
to and fro. The first thought of the in- 
surgents seems to be for food. They 
almost crush the bakers who dare to 
open their shops. Many soldiers share 
their rations with them. How the insur- 
gents managed to live for nine days is a 
mystery. Soldiers [Hilling down the 



stones on the barricades have their 
mouths tilled witli bread. 

At an angle in the market-place is a 
little street where a sharp corner had 
been availed of as a chance for a very high 
barricade. Peering through a rent in it 
I see a most affecting scene : an old man, 
neatly dressed, is standing in the midst 
of the insurgents, who have just thrown 
down their arms, clasping the hands of a 
slight boy, whose face is pale with ex- 
citement. Around tin' hoy's head is 
wound a red handkerchief. On the 
"round lies a huge eavalrv revolver, to 
which the boy is pointing with excited 
gestures. The old man is crazy to get 

his loved om son. or ward, or employe 

— out of the horrible place, and urges him 
to retire, while the little fellow insists 
upon lingering to tell the story of his 
battle. 

Blood runs afresh in the market-place, 
but it is now from the butchers' cleavers. 
Half-starved people surround the stands 
in the meat-market, and stalwart fellows 
slay, and cut, and cut again, until they 
are exhausted. "On Sunday." says 
the merchant accompanying us, '■ the 
same insurrectionists who have fought 
here will come in market-carts to offer 
their farm produce at the high price 
caused by the insurrection." 

I have dwelt thus upon this nine 
days' insurrection in Valencia, because it 
is in a certain way typical of all the 
civil struggles which occur in Spain, in 
its picturesque features; but also he- 
cause it is entitled to a place in history, 
as being founded upon a vigorous pro- 
test against kingship. It was too full 
of dignity at its outbreak to be consid- 
ered as a, mere riot, and too grand and 
thrilling towards its close to be called 
even a battle. There were more than 
one thousand people killed during the 
nine days' lighting, and three times that 



EC ROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



77 



number seriously wounded. The Repub- 
licanos quite astonished the Monarchists, 
■who fancied that they could so easily 
reestablish what they consider the natu- 
ral order of things after the uprising of 



cians can never be forgotten. Alamenos 
could have crushed them with bombs; 
but he could never have taken the town 
so long as they remained alive. Their 
protest over, they withdrew with that 



18G8. These simple peasants awed and dignity which is one of the imposing 
astonished the constitutional govern- elements in the Spanish character. On 




MOUNTAINEERS UOIXO HOME AFTER THE SIEGE. 



ment. They neither sacked nor wantonly 
injured the beautiful Valencia!) mansions, 
some of which are almost fairy-like in 
their gorgeous splendor, with fronts of 
alabaster, carved inornate and fantastic 
designs, and with marble, jasper, por- 
phyry, precious or costly stones, in their 
interior decorations. As a sublime 
democratic protest against monarchy of 
any hue the struggle of these Valen- 



the morning after the surrender we saw 
regiments marching into the mountains, 
and were told that great numbers of 
arrests would be made. But we fancied 
that our lively friends, who had done so 
well behind the barricades, would know 
how to get out of the reach of Alamenos 
and his men when their feet were on 
their native heaths. 

Castelar was not discouraged at the 



78 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



failure of the revolution which he hud 
been instrumental in fomenting A 
brief sketch of his political career and 
of Spanish politics from those wild days 
of 1869 until the advent of Alfonso may 
not be out of place lure. Castelar con- 
tinued to sit in the Cortes, where lie was 
one of the most formidable members of 
the opposition to the reactionary policy 
of the Regent Serrano. In the troubles 
which came upon France in consequence 
of her indiscreet interference in the can- 
didateship of the Prince Leopold Von 
Hoheiizollern for the throne of Spain, 
Castelar manifested his Republican sym- 
pathies in the most, straightforward 
and uncompromising manner. When he 
heard of the revolution which broke out 
in Paris after the fall of Sedan, and 
which resulted in the declaration of the 
Republic, he drew up and signed with the 
Republican minority in the Cortes an ad- 
dress which was sent to the government 
of National Defense, saluting in it the 
triumph of law and the inauguration of 
a new era of peace and liberty for all 
Europe. In the following October he 
even went to Tours, where Gumbetta 
and Garibaldi had arrived nearly worn 
out after their desperate endeavors to 
organize the defence in the South. At 
Tours Castelar made a great speech, as- 
suring the French of the sympathy of 
Republican Spain. Like Victor Hugo 
he has always cherished the dream of a 
federal union, a United States of Europe, 
which is not likely to be realized in our 
time ; ami he amplified his notion of this 
union in the speech at Tours. He was 
fine of the strongest opponents to the 
candidacy of Amadeo of Italy for the 
Spanish throne: and after Amadeo's 
election, aud during the two years of his 
reign, he vigorously attacked the policy 
of Serrano and Sagasta. It was during 
this interruption of the Republic, on the 



•21st of December, 1872, that Castelar 
made his great speech in favor of the 
abolition of slavery in the Spanish pos- 
sessions. This, and bis address on the 
liberty of public worship, mentioned else- 
where, are enough to make any orator's 
memory immortal. 

In 1873 tin' Republic had a second 
triumph. King Amadeo abdicated, and 
Republican institutions were proclaimed 
by a great majority in the Cortes. The 
ministry in which Castelar held the port- 
folio i f foreign affairs was at once 
named. From this time forward until 
the last days of FS71 Castelar and his 
followers seemed likely, as the result 
of the vigorous revolutions of 1868 and 
1869, definitely to graft Republican insti- 
tutions upon the Spanish nation. The 
year of 1873 was highly encouraging to 
Liberals throughout the country- A 
counter-revolution was prepared with 
much dexterity, but it was thwarted by 
the vigor of the Republicans. Castelar 
repeatedly risked his own life by his 
courageous intervention in tumultuous 
public gatherings. In the spring of 1873 
he had laid before the country the pro- 
gramme, and in this programme the 
ministry declared for complete decen- 
tralization, suppression of Church and 
State, the abolition of slavery, modifica- 
tion of the abuses in recruiting in the 
army, and improvement of the adminis- 
tration of justice. Castelar and his col- 
leagues then resigned, believing that they 
could lie of more use as simple deputies. 

and a Federal Republic was shortly af- 
terwards proclaimed, after new elections 

had brought into power a thoroughly 
representative body of Spanish Liberals. 
Shortly after this the new Republic 
was overwhelmed with troubles. The 
Radicals came forward with the most 
extravagant propositions, and seemed 
likely to throw the nation into anarchy. 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



7S> 



A Carlist invasion in the north, and a 
Communistic rising in the- south, the 
disorganization of the army and an 
almost bankrupt condition of the treas- 
ury, discouraged all but Castelar, who 
had meantime become President of the 
Cortes, and who, anxious to save the 
Republic, allowed himself to be made 
Dictator. He did for Spain in a few 
short months what Gambetta did for 
France in the trying days of the autumn 
of 1870. Out of the complete chaos he 
organized an army of nearly one hundred 
thousand men ; he reestablished military 
discipline, and punished with the great- 
est severity all breaches of army law. 
By a wise and just system of taxation 
he managed to reestablish the public 
funds, and it is remarkable that he did 
not get into debt a single penny, yet 
found what money was wanted on better 
terms than was ever obtained by the 
luckiest ministers or preceding monarchs. 
It is scarcely necessary to say here that 
it was entirely due to his political clever- 
ness that war with the United States 
was avoided at the time of the Virginius 
affair. All the time that he was harassed 
and weighed down with a thousand 
details of military and civil administra- 
tion he had also carefully to watch the 
intrigues and menacing movements of 
the Serrano party, which was already 
moving heaven and earth to put the son 
of Dona Isabel upon the throne. He 
went on with wonderful skill, and might 
have been in power now, had it not been 
for his own generosity. His desire to 
rally to the government of the Republic 
all Liberals, without distinction of party, 
made him the antagonist of Salmeron, 
who had meantime became the President 
of the Cortes ; and on the 2d of January. 
1874, Castelar found himself among the 
members of the minority. He at once 
resigned, and the next day came General 



Pavia, with his coup d'Etat, :i weak and 
detestable imitation of the original crime 
of the same species in France. The 
Deputies were expelled from the Cham- 
ber, and Marshal Serrano and his politi- 
cal friends took power into their own 
hands, to do with it as they saw lit. 
Castelar went back to private life with 
the profound conviction that the Repub- 
lic must wait a new opportunity, as he 
saw that political wisdom had not yet 
been developed in the peninsula. 

Towards the close of 1874 he had 
numerous interviews with Sagasta, who, 
as minister, had much influence, and 
who seemed to favor the idea of found- 
ing in Spain a conservative Republic on 
the basis proposed in France. But then 
came the revolution of December, 1874, 
the proclamation of Alfonso XII. as 
King of Spain, and Castelar, disgusted 
and disheartened, gave his resignation as 
professor in the University of Madrid. 
and departed from Spain on a long jour- 
ney. But in 1876 he stepped back into 
the political arena, and was elected to the 
Cortes from the independent and demo- 
cratic city of Barcelona. 

His programme, then given in his 
speech to the voters of Barcelona, is as 
far from fulfilment in Spain to-day as it 
would have been a quarter of a century 
ago. " I wish," said the great orator, 
" an organization of the State, in close 
harmony ami intimate relation with lib- 
erty and democracy. I demand the 
fundamental rights of humanity, univer- 
sal suffrage, the incontestable basis of 
all democratic government, complete 
religious liberty with its immediate con- 
sequences, national instruction, and the 
State independent of every Church, re- 
establishment of the institution of trial 
by jury, and the faithful practice of the 
laws as they are written down." 

At Valencia, as at Barcelona and To- 



80 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



ledo and numerous other Spanish cities, 
religious mystery plays and processions 
form one of the chief amusements of the 
populace. In the principal theatres of 
Valencia, the " Passion of Christ " is 
annually performed. The passion com- 
bines reverential treatment of sacred 
subjects and common-place dramatic 
effects in the most peculiar manner. 
The curtain rises on a scene loaded 
with Arabic decorations. Magdalene 
is disclosed combine' her long tresses, 
looking at herself in a silver mirror, 
ami soliloquizing upon her affection for 
the Saviour. Suddenly Judas enters 
ami tells her of his love for her. She 
repels him in the most ignominious fash- 
ion. Judas departs furious, crying out 
that he will have revenge. At this point 
a few of the native spectators warn 
Judas t<> desist, or they will come upon 
the stage and punish him. The scene 
changes. The Saviour is seen bidding his 
mother adieu. Mary is overcome by a 
presentiment of danger, and urges him to 
remain with her. But the curtain opens 
at the back of the stage, and discloses 
the purgatory tilled with choristers, rep- 
resenting the spirits of the condemned 
bewailing their sad fate. " Mother, 
these souls suffer unutterable anguish." 
are the words of the Saviour ; " I must 
deliver them." 

All the phases of the final passion 
succeed in regular order, and are often 
portrayed with rough, realistic vigor. 
The flagellation is sometimes so alarm- 
ingly real in appearance that the moun- 
taineers menace with death those who are 
applying the scourges. So serious and 
reverent are the lookers-on that they 
refuse to be startled from their equa- 
nimity, even when they see St. John at 
the wings wearing a slouch hat to protect 



his head from draughts, or when they are 
told that Magdalene rolls cigarettes 
behind the scenes and chats with the 
dancing-girls. Sometimes the most mon- 
strous absurdities occur upon the stage. 
In the tableau of the Resurrection, one 
evening, in a Valencia theatre, the fiirure 
of the risen Redeemer, as it passed 
through the air, toppled over, and hung 
head downwards, until the person filling 
the rdle was nearly suffocated. This 
passion has such an excitable effect upon 
the populace that the bishops of Bar- 
celona and Madrid forbade, at one time, 
its representation in their cities. Old 
women would spit upon the ground with 
rage when Judas appeared upon the 
scene, and if the poor artist were recog- 
nized on tin' street any night after the 
performance he ran serious risk of being 
torn in pieces. 

< hi the festival day of St. Vicente, 
patron of Valencia, the tradesmen or- 
ganize lay processions in his honor, and 
the young people of the upper classes 
erect platforms in the open air, upon 
which tableaux, showing the principal 
events in the life of the holy man, are 
given. Every hundredth year witnesses 
one of the grandest festivals of the 
Roman Church in St. Vicente's honor. 
Even the materials of the ecclesiastical 
treasury are exhibited in" the narrow 
Valencian streets. Twelve stout fellows 
carry a heavy cross, which they are 
strictly enjoined not to set down. If, 
overcome with fatigue, they disobey this 
injunction, they are lined, and the cross 
then belongs to the church upon wdiose 
parish soil it falls. Gigantic figures of 
St. Christopher bearing the child Jesus 
upon his shoulder, of Methuselah, and of 
numerous other saints and worthies of 
holy writ, fill the ranks of this pageant. 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



81 



CHAPTER EIGHT. 

Ten Years After. — Kingship Reestablished in Spain. — Going to a Royal Wedding. — The French Hale 
of the Sea. — Marseilles. — Reminiscences of the Pestilence. — Napoleon III. and Marseilles. — 
Barcelona. — The Catalonian People. — From Barcelona to Valencia. — A Retrospect. — A Spanish 
Bishop. — Tortosa. — In the Beautiful South. — In the Market-place of Valencia. — Out of the 
World into Church. 



I LITTLE thought, when witnessing 
these numerous protests against the 
reestablishment of royalty in Spain, 
that the very question of monarchical 
restoration would be the indirect cause of 
the greatest war of modern times ; and 
that the son of Dona Isabel would come 
to the throne from which his mother had 
been compelled to flee in 1868. With 
the vanishing of 3011th go a host of 
cherished illusions, and the reaction, 
which I should have thought impossible 
in 18G9, seemed to me, at least, expli- 
cable in 1879. It so happened that, ex- 
actly ten years after witnessing the great 
insurrection in Valencia, I found myself 
once more in that battle-scarred old 
town, on the way to witness the second 
wedding of young King Alfonso, at the 
court where he has so peacefully main- 
tained himself despite the revolutions in 
the south, and the Carlists' wars in the 
north, since the wise men interfered, as 
they said, in the interests of order, and 
placed him on the throne in Madrid. 
History had been made with great 
rapidity in Spain during the deeade just 
flown ; but the greater events north of 
the Pyrenees had dwarfed the Carlists' 
campaigns and the Andalusian revolts, 
so that they seemed of small interest to 
the European public. Yet progress had 
been made. Hundreds of monasteries 
and nunneries had been closed. In Bar- 
celona and other seaport towns a new 



commerce was springing up vigorously, 
and defied even the most crushing taxa- 
tion of the monarchy to keep it down. 
Bands of English engineers were explor- 
ing the mountain chains, in which lay 
hidden such a rich store of minerals ; for 
Spain is the treasure-house of the future, 
and every man, woman, and child within 
her limits might be rich if they were 
blessed with systematic industry. The 
Carlists had been literally laughed out 
of existence. Their beggarly exchequer 
and the protracted nature of their impo- 
tent campaigns had been powerful aids 
to the then little army which King Al- 
fonso had at his disposal. The Republic 
had come into view four or five times, 
and had gone back again into obscurity, 
because of the excesses of its disciples. 
So I was compelled, in my southward 
journey, in 1879, to pocket my illusions, 
and to confess that, for the present, 
Spain seemed wedded to monarchy, to 
Catholicism, and to the indolence which 
has long been her curse. 

I went down from Paris to Marseilles, 
and thence to Barcelona, that I might 
on the way to Madrid travel across the 
great stretch of country lying between 
Barcelona and Valencia ; the country over 
which young Hannibal tramped with his 
forces many a time, and which offers 
some of the most striking contrasts in 
scenery to be found in Europe. The 
whole journey from Paris to Madrid by 



82 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

this roundabout route is a series of pict- In the good old stirring times of 1574 
uresque and delightful surprises. Per- Henry III. besieged the fortress into 
haps there is no change more striking in which the Protestant Montbrun had wilh- 
France than that between the northern drawn, after haviDg given the king an 
plains on which Paris stands, surrounded uncommonly good thrashing in a battle 
by gently rolling hills, and the wild coun- not far from that point. Henry sum- 
try of the Midi. Six hundred miles from moned Montbrun to surrender; but the 
the French capital one is in a land which latter sent forth a. refusal almost as eon- 
seeins to have felt hut little, if at all, temptuous as the reputed response of 
the modern influence. These vast fiats, Cambronne at Waterloo. So the royal 
covered with diminutive olive-trees wav- and Catholic army sat down before the 
ing their shaggy tufts of leaves violently citadel of Livron, ami was just beginning 
beneath the rude caresses of the Mistral ; to think that the Protestants would come 
ami these ancient towns, hemmed in by out with ropes about their necks, would 
walls which must have been built long acknowledge that they had been very 
before Columbus discovered America; naughty and mutinous, and would solicit 
these hills, covered with ruined castles the favor of being executed in the pres- 
aud strongholds, — are all part of a past, ence of the king, when it was surprised 
that appears to have been invaded by to see the said Protestants charging 
no features of the present, except, the down upon it; and before it could re- 
railroad, which is a kind of anachro- cover from its astonishment it had 
nism. The olive-orchards, the old cement been very thoroughly walked over twice 
mills, the wine-presses, and the quaint or thrice. This made the Catholic lie- 
silk and ceramic factories, are the only siegers angry, and they assaulted in 
evidence of trade; yet the populations their turn. Then Montbrun, to show 
must trade busily, for the thickness with that la 1 feared them not at all, when he 
which the population is sown through had repulsed their attack, came out with 
certain sections of this southern France fifty chosen men, and, sword in hand, 
is quite wonderful. Every live minutes these gallant fifty-one chased back to 
the rapid train passes through towns of their tents the armies of Henry III. 
ten thousand, fifteen thousand, or twenty The siege had begun in June of 1574; 
thousand inhabitants, — towns where not it lasted with but little intermission until 
a building has been erected perhaps for January of 1575, when the beaten and 
hundreds of years; where the inhabit- humiliated Henry withdrew his forces. 
ants consider a cathedral of the four- < )n every hand, up and down the length 
teenth or fifteenth century as new. The ami breadth of the Midi, from the charm- 
route passes ancient Valence, where sat ing coast where the rugged and many- 
tlie (anions political council in 1563; colored rocks are bathed by purple and 
where Pius VI. died, and where a eel- blue and violet water, to tin 1 fat plains 

tain youth, known as Napoleon Bona- and teeming vineyards in the mill st 

parte, completed Ins military education, section, arc interesting historic meino- 

Valence is full of memories of the Prot- rials. The term '-Midi" is in the north 

estants, and the valiant way in which indefinitely applied to the whole southern 

they defended their principles in the old portion of France; but the inhabitants 

days; and not very far away is Livron, of the south are as proud of their local 

which deserves a commemorative poem, divisions as our own American people is 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



83 



of its States, and the people of Provence 
are noted for their bigoted devotion to 
their fair land. Tell them of the delights 
and wonders of the great capital, and 
they point to their orange-groves, their 
laurel roses, their myrtles, their palm- 
trees towering high in air, their blue hills 
clad in garments of vapor, their rich 
earth, from which springs with tropical 
abundance such variety of fruits, and 
they say that the Parisians have none of 
these. The Marseillais is confident that 
there is no city so beautiful, so bewitch- 
ing, as his own. 

Marseilles is a huge, cosmopolitan, in- 
dustrious, vigorous city, offering the 
strongest and strangest contrast to the 
sleep}' Spanish and Italian towns easily 
reached from it. The Cannebiere, the 
principal promenade, is crowded all day 
long with thousands of men, women, 
and children ; but no one seems really 
idle This is the French gate of the sea. 
On the majestic quays one sees Arabs, 
Nubians, Greeks, Turks, and the motley 
and speckled peoples of the Orient. No 
one turns to stare at them. In Paris a 
black Mollah, in a gown of bedticking. 
would be gazed at for hours; in Mar- 
seilles he passes unnoticed. Paris 
possesses nothing finer than the Rue de 
la R6publique in Marseilles. It is a 
veritable avenue of palaces, and sweeps 
majestically over the brow of a tine hill. 
On the front of the Exchange, fitly situ- 
ated near the water, which brings Mar- 
seilles her wealth, the prows of galleys 
are sculptured in marble, ami remind 
one of the origin of the town. How 
little did the old Phoenicians fancy, when 
they came prowling along this coast in 
their galleys, that one day the little 
colony, which they were here to found, 
would become the chief seaport of a rich 
and powerful nation ! These Phoenicians 
started ou their expedition in obedience 



to the oracle of Ephesus, six hundred 
years before the birth of Christ. Com- 
merce has been going on in the port ever 
since that time ; but all the great im- 
provements have been made within the 
last sixty years, and it is astonishing to 
note what has been done in that time. 
In 1850 the basins and clocks covered a 
space of little more than sixty acres ; 
to-day they spread over three times that 
area. Liverpool, Antwerp, Marseilles, 
and Genoa strive for commercial su- 
premacy in Europe. Marseilles will 
not be last in the race. Its warehouse 
frontage is enormous; those of London 
and New York alone are larger. From 
this port goes forth the great fleet of 
the Messageries Maritimes, which pos- 
sesses fift3'-six steamers, sailing to al- 
most every important point in the East ; 
and four other great companies own 
seventy-five first-class sea-going steam- 
ships. The Mediterranean ami eastern 
seas are covered with craft, plying from 
Marseilles ; and every sunset sees a 
dozen bows which have been washed by 
the surges of the Orient grating against 
the quays. China, South America, and 
all the Mediterranean ports pour their 
riches into the lap of Marseilles. Italy, 
Spain, Algeria, and Corsica are almost 
dependent upon her. Cereals, oils, silks, 
and alcohol lie packed in the enormous 
warehouses. 

Marseilles is, of course, Republican. 
All the great cities of France are; but 
there are reactionary elements at work 
there all the time. The church has a 
feeble hold in the city. Until a com- 
paratively recent epoch the city had no 
church of any considerable dimensions. 
The great revolution swept away all of 
the principal ones, and they were never 
rebuilt. The women are still scrupulous 
in their observance of Catholic form, but 
the mass of the men pay no attention to 



84 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

the formulas of the church. Perhaps Marseilles paj-s great attention to the 

we must except the fishermen, who I rules of health to-day, because she has 

believe fancy themselves under the pro- had several terrible lessons in the past. 

tection of " Our Lady of Lagarde," who The pest came in the old times, none 

has a handsome church on such a eon- knew how or whence, and smote the 

spicuous hill that it serves as a landmark population with dreadful force in 17:20 

for the home-coming seamen. From and 1721. It Cell upon Marseilles, and 

this hill one can look out miles over the did not depart until it hail made eighty 

vari-colored sea, and over the hills sur- thousand victims. It is supposed that 

rounding Marseilles; hills where vine- the plague was originally brought in 

yards and olive-gardens are interspersed an eastern vessel; but this was never 

with tracts of wretched deserts, lit only proved. It was even the custom to bury 

for the habitation of (he horrid swine the dead in the vaults of the churches, 

that one sees trotting about them. and this deplorable habit contributed to 

Napoleon 111. was fond of Marseilles, spread the disease. The Bishop of 

and built there a vast prefecture, which Marseilles was visiting at the Court in 

is a local wonder, like Monte-Cl'isto Versailles, when the news of the Ollt- 

and the Cannabiere. The prefecture break of the plague reached him in a 

is in the correct and monotonous style note conceived as follows, and preserved 

of the Second Empire. Large and line in the archives of the city: " Monseig- 

avenues, bordered with beautiful trees, ueur, — The Hock calls its shepherd, 

radiate from it in every direction. God has chastised Marseilles. The pest 

The northerner in these southern lands is slaving us. The rich have fled. The 

will never tire of studying the popula- poor are dying. The desolation is gen- 

tions. The singing workmen and the eral. People believe that they see in 

chattering and laughing Provencal the air the angel which slew with the 

maidens, with eves like sloes, and plague the legions of Sennacherib. 

hair like the raven's wing, and the Come, and die with us." 

tawny Italians, who have come to Mar- The heroic bishop left the Court at 

seilles in search of the work which midnight lo escape the objections to his 

they cannot find at home, — are all departure which he knew would be made 

interesting. The Provencal language, by the dissolute monarch of the time, 

when one listens to it from a short He travelled twelve days, with relays of 

distance, sounds so much like English, horses, and on the evening of the 

with the inflection which is given to thirteenth day he reached Marseilles, 

it in America, (hat he involuntarily The city was indeed desolate. The 

turns his head when he hears it, ex- galley-slaves had been mustered to clear 

pecting lo be hailed by an acquaintance away the corpses which encumbered the 

or to recognize his own national type, streets. People were dying by hundreds 

Full of Greek and Latin, this sono- on the very thresholds of their houses, 

rolls and musical language, when well A kind of leprosy was in the air. The 

spoken, by cultivated people, has a bishop marched into the church, where 

grace which must be denied to the lay the unbiiried dead, and celebrated 

French with its staccato note and to the high mass. Confidence returned to the 

Spanish witli its collection of hisses and cowards who had run away, when they 

gutturals. learned that their pastor was in the city, 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 85 

and people came back. The bishop outside his native province. But the 
ordered mass to be celebrated a few days city people are by no menus rough or 
thereafter in the open air in the very ignorant. Barcelona seems to give the 
midst, of the plague; and the church lie to the assertion that Spain alone, of 
brought forth all its splendors for the all European countries, refuses to lie 
occasion. The bells of the convents modernized. On every hand are spring- 
rang; the cannon of the forts thundered ; ing up beautiful promenades and stately 
and, when the De us in Adjutorium was streets around the ancient Barcelona's 
intoned, eighty thousand voices took up labyrinthine alleys and obscure lanes. 
the chorus. For weeks thereafter the The exquisite leafy Rambla, the grand 
bishop, bareheaded and with cross in central street of Barcelona, is one of the 
hand, went about, adjuring the people prettiest sights in the world on a sun- 
to lie courageous ; and, proper measures shiny winter Sunday morning, when the 
having been taken, the plague soon died yellow leaves of the sycamores seem like 
entirely away, and for more than a a golden canopy over the thousands of 
century and a half the authorities of men and women promenading with Span- 
Marseilles have taken almost infinite ish insouciance. The shop-keeping ele- 
precautions against the return of the ment is, of course, prominent, in a corn- 
dreaded visitor. mercial seaport like Barcelona, but the 

The park of the Prado is one of the people are renowned for the elegance of 
loveliest in Europe. It is rather an their dress and their manners. A deli- 
avenue than a park, yet partakes of the cacy of taste, which is one of the praise- 
character of both. Noble trees border worthy qualities of the Spanish charac- 
it. and from any point on the promenade ter, is observable in the deportment of 
one may look around on exquisite villas, the soft-voiced girls, dressed in black, 
Italian in architecture ; or densely wooded with the traditional lace veils adjusted 
hills, over which a bluish vapor seems carefully upon their glossy braids as 
perpetually to hover ; or on naked sum- they accompany their mammas home 
mits of rock ; on ancient convents, tran- from the morning service at some one 
quil amid their groves; on bastides, as of the many churches. The whole ex- 
the country-seats are called ; and, finally, tent of the Rambla, from the water-side 
on the magic surface of the southern to the Saragossa railway station, resem- 
sea. bles, at noon on a Sunday, a vast salon, 

From Marseilles I went straight to in which all classes of society are repre- 
Barcelona, where I found the Catalans seuted. On either side of the broad 
hut little interested in the royal festivi- avenue run paved streets, lined with 
ties soon to occur in Madrid. The land- immensely high, solid houses containing 
lord at the principal hotel shrugged his the principal hotels and shops of the 
shoulders, and said he knew nothing quarter. Soldiers are a frequent sight 
about the king's wedding ; and I was in the large cities of Spain. The sol- 
informed that the railways did not find it dier, the priest, and the gendarme, are 
worth their while to organize excursion like the poor in these sunshiny lands, 
trains from Barcelona to the capital for — 3011 have them always with you. The 
the wedding. A queer character is the Sunday parade brings together in Barce- 
Catalau of the fields, with his rough lona two or three thousand soldiers, 
dialect, his contempt for everything dressed in admirably fitting uniforms of 



86 



EUROPE 1\ STORM AND CALM. 



lilac coats, red trousers, and green 
gloves, and these defenders of the mon- 
archy are always marshalled by hand- 
some officers. The sellers of lottery 
tickets, and itinerant venders of almost 
every useless object conceivable, are the 
pests of the stranger in Barcelona. The 
clubs, the great Liceo Theatre, said to 
lie the largest in the world, and the su- 
perb plan for municipal improvements, 
are worth careful attention from the 
traveller. The citizens of Barcelona 
have had the best features of Vienna 
and Paris mapped out in an unoccupied 
space in the most beautiful outlying 
district of tin' city, lint it will take 
halt' a century and a population of one 
million to bring Barcelona anywhere 
near the level of the plan. The Athe- 
naeum Cluli of Barcelona has a thousand 
members, chosen from tie' liberal profes- 
sions. No Spanish city has more induce- 
ments as an agreeable place of residence 
for a few months to those who wish 
mild winter weather. The climate is 
singularly soft and free from sudden 
changes. The' last leaf does not flutter 

down to the ground until mid-Decem- 
ber, ami the trees are green again almost 
before one has noticed the absence of 

leaves. 

lint I have not space to tell you 
all the curiosities of Barcelona: the 
strange old cathedral, with its three 
vast naves and its subterranean chapel 
of wonderful richness of design and or- 
nament: the' mansions of the Diputa- 
cion, built in the sixteenth century, ami 
enriched with many of Fortuny's master- 
pieces; or the great rambling square ou 
which the Exchange stands; or the 
pretty fountain, around which are grouped 
statues representing tin 1 cities of north- 
ern Spain. A striking effect in the 
cathedral is produced by the subdued 
and many-colored lights which fall 



through the stained-glass windows upon 
the hundreds of worshippers, kneeling 
at early morning in one of the central 
aisles under suit tints, which seem to 
tremble down upon (hem like benedic- 

ti< 'IIS. 

Tt is a far cry from Barcelona to Va- 
lencia, and 1 travelled thither in company 
with a. tall and stately Spanish bishop, 
who in the country of proverbially hand- 
some men would readily pass for one of 
the finest specimens. lie was accom- 
panied by an elderly lady, with a slightly 
apparent beard, who was evidently his 
sister. Had this priest been an army offi- 
cer he would have broken a hundred 
hearts before lie gained his retiring pen- 
sion. But there was no trace of world- 
liness in his calm and serene countenance, 
or in the deep black eyes, from which 
shone a softened spiritual light. Every- 
thing about his person bespoke an aristo- 
cratic gentilitv. completely at the service 
of the church. His shapely form was 
encased in a black silk gown, which 
descended to his plain shoes, and I could 
only now and then catch a gleam of a 
fine silk stocking as he moved. A low 
linen collar and a black clerical band 
were the only ornaments at his neck. On 
his head he wore a small skull-cap. which 
left bare a rich expanse of brow, with 
but few wrinkles upon it. His lips 
were thin, and his speech was refined. 
I fancied that this was not at all the 
type of a man whom Philip II. would 
have liked to have had near him. 
The fanatical monarch would have ban- 
ished him from his presence, and would 

have replaced him by some one of 
sterner, fiercer type. I imagined, too, 
that my fellow-traveller, the bishop, 
would have been shocked, rather than 
offended or angered, if some light -headed 
free-thinker had attacked him in con- 
versation, endeavoring to prove to him 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



87 



that the church is doomed to decay. 
This bishop was certainly one of those 
who are firm in the faith. For him the 
beautiful forms of madonnas, saints, 
and martyrs, the sonorous chants of 
monkish choirs, and the incense-laden 
interiors of immense cathedrals, were 
profoundly touching, and represented 
realities from which no weak human 
assertion or argument could detract. 
I would have given much to have heard 
his opinion on socialism, nihilism, and 
a dozen other isms now making- their 
blind way through this world. I am 
sure that his statements would have 
been deliberate and gentle, devoid of 
wrath, and the fruit of honest conviction. 
If he had been told that he and his 
were standing obstacles to modern 
progress in Spain I am confident that 
he would have answered, with a winning 
smile, that progress must bow before 
the immutable, omnipresent, all-power- 
ful church. I was so interested in the 
bishop that I forgot to look atTarragona ; 
but just beyond it there were exquisite 
bits of scenery : here and there, gardens 
through which soft breezes were blow- 
ing, lazily moving the leaves of the 
semi-tropical trees ; bits of oriental greeu 
framed in rugged rock ; a superb bridge, 
with its squat arch of red, standing out 
in fine relief against a brilliant back- 
ground of green, — a bridge named, it 
is said, after the devil, although I 
suppose his grace, the bishop, would 
have been puzzled to tell me why the 
structure, which dates back to Hannibal, 
should be devoted to his Satanic majesty. 
How little the warriors who spurred up 
and down these fields with Hannibal 
dreamed that some day a demon with 
its belly full of steam would draw trav- 
ellers across the lands from one city to 
another, in less time than it took them to 
go half-a-dozen leagues ! 



Southward and inward we went, across 
the fertile plains just below Tarragona, 
past villages nestling among vines and 
orange-groves, past wild almond-trees 
and mulberries, and now the villagers 
began to look more uncouth and savage 
than those between Barcelona and Tarra- 
gona. The men were clothed in linen 
trousers caught up at the knee, and their 
feet were encased in rawhide and straw 
sandals. For head-gear they wore only 
a handkerchief, colored and dirty. I 
recognized my old friends of ten years 
before, and the same types that I saw 
fighting behind the barricades in Valen- 
cia. Most of them carried knives in 
their belts and blankets slung over their 
shoulders. When they engage in a 
quarrel they cither whip the blanket 
around their loins or over one arm, using 
it as a protector against the dreadful 
thrusts which all of them know how to 
give with the knife. The women are 
dressed as simply as the men, and some- 
times wear so little clothing that it quite 
astonishes the stranger from more deco- 
rous regions. 

At Tortosa I lost my companion, the 
bishop, a mighty crowd of black-frocked 
and rotund clerical gentry coming down 
and bearing him off most reverently to 
some Episcopal residence. 'Hie sister 
with the dimly perceptible beard occu- 
pied herself with the parcels, and the 
bishop departed with a sonorous " Fare- 
well." which had all the unctuous flavor 
of a benediction. 

The tram passed through a stone- 
strewn plain, where grew scarcely herbage 
enough for the flocks ; yet every mile 
or two were sheepfolds skilfully con- 
structed of stone and earth, so that the 
fierce winds which sometimes rage there 
could not tear them down. As we left 
Tortosa we caught a glimpse of a long 
street, winding up a steep hill, and in 



88 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

the middle of this avenue swepl by the nessed. Oddly enough, Stanley was at 

penetrating sun we saw three figures, this place exactly three years after the 

which sum tip the civilization of Spain, insurrection of 1869, and saw a second 

One was a soldier, the second a priest, fight, much like that which we had seen 

and the third a peasant, looking enough together. That night I had visions of 

like a bandit to have been garroted on battle whenever the night-watchman, 

suspicion. There were mysterious bal- who insisted <>u passing every hour 

conies protruding from still more mys- through the narrow street and yelling 

tenons houses; shady alley-ways, in forth his protest that all was serene, 

which roses were growing in the open would let me net a momentary nap. 

air; cool nooks, where the old women This wretched watchman, with lantern 

sat spinning, here and anon, in the and spear in hand, ought to have been 

kaleidoscopic vision that we had of garroted for shrieking " Las doee de hi 

Tortosa, before we were trundled out of noche: sereno." "Go home, you misera- 

it into the open plain, and began to draw ble wretch, and impale yourself upon 

near to a rocky range of mountains. your own spear," I cried to him in 

Once past the mountains we were in frenzy; but he shouted on. 
the real south, where the fig, the olive, Twelve o'clock, and all serene. Alas, 
the vine, the orange, the almond, were yes! — serene in conscious servitude, in 
common in the fields, in this soft. De- slavery to a youthful monarch, Va- 
cember weather. The odor of orange- leucia, the pretty city of the ('id Cam- 
leaves perfumed the air; the delicate peador, calmly wearing her chains. At 

darkness seemed to heighten the value last I went to sleep, and dreamed that 

of the perfume, and to render the foliage the Cid came back to the world on his 

even more bewitching than when dis- famous steed, and carried away young 

tinctly seen. Elere and there were Alfonso XII. and his palace on the point 

superb estates, and ileal' them lauds of his gigantic lance. About three 
lying as incult as they were two thousand o'clock an enterprising cock ami a roar- 
years ago. The farm-houses and the ing watchman made a combined attempt 
adjoining buildings were all fortified and on my slumbers; hut this time I escaped 
connected together in a manner which the snare, ami when L awoke it was 
indicated that the country is not safe, broad daylight, and under my windows 
At Saguntuni, near the rather ugly two children were singing sweetly, 
modern town of Murviedro, we found In the morning I went through the 
several dozens of old women, who ex- market-place. The square in which ten 
peeled to sell us candles, with which to years ago 1 hail seen dead men lying, 
visit the Roman ruins by night. We — the steam, as Francois Coppee says, in 
declined to stop, and went on to Yalen- his " Legend of Saragossa," rising from 
eia, through beautiful vineyards and their blood on the pavement, as the hot 
orange-orchards; and at ten o'clock, on sun beat down upon it, — was now filled 
a beautiful moonlight night, I was in with almond-eyed, dark-haired rustic 
Valencia. A period of ten years had in maidens, shielded under dirty-colored 
no way sufficed to soften the horrors of awnings, and announcing in their musi- 
the tartana, or native omnibus. I went cal voices the excellence of the fruits 
out into tin' market-place and tried to and flowers which they desired to sell, 
picture anew the scene which I had wit- From the church, which I had seen 



EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 



89 



beleaguered one day and turned into 
a hospital the next, turned forth a cur- 
rent of nurse-maids carrying bright ba- 
bies, and followed by anxious mothers, 
who had been attending some ceremony 
for the good of the most Catholic infants. 
How bright the babies are in this land 
of sunshine and politics ! They totally 
disarrange one's theories about the race 
in decadence. Personal beauty of a ro- 
bust, vigorous, and enduring type is as 
common in Spain as flowers in the hedge 
or birds in the thatches. 

The cathedral was full of memories for 
me, for I had seen it, ten years before, 
when the fighting had just ceased to 
rage around it, and when the wounded, 
with bandaged heads, were grouped 
against its yellow and ancient walls. I 
remembered how in the holy dimness I 
had seen a handsome young engineer, 
with pale face and huge moustache, kneel- 
ing in an attitude of intense thankfulness 
before the altar, doubtless stirred to his 
heart's core with thanksgiving because 
his life had been spared. I remembered 
the mountaineers strolling about the sa- 
cred door-ways with cigarettes at their 
lips, and their gleaming rifles in their 
hands. 

I took off my hat, and went in. The 
old beggar woman squatting on the 
stones pulled back the leathern curtain, 
and held out her withered hand for char- 
ity. For a moment, after the sharp 
sunlight of the streets, the dimness 
was embarrassing to the vision ; but 
presently my eyes became used to the 
place, and I saw that everything was as 
it hail been for two or three centuries ; 
that nothing had been changed in these 
ten years. The revolution had come and 
gone, but the church remained. The 
revolution had despoiled monasteries and 
convents, but here was no sign of dis- 
turbance. By letting the leathern cur- 



tain fall behind me I had shut tile nine- 
teenth centun completely out and away. 

As I strolled up to the central euro, 
or vast church within a church, which is 
a peculiar feature of Spanish ecclesias- 
tical edifices, and looked in through the 
opening, which was surrounded with 
sculptured angels, cardinals, popes, 
bishops, and cherubims, in lovely and 
somewhat incongruous confusion, I 
saw long rows of aged priests seated on 
carved benches, holding books open be- 
fore them and singing praises unto the 
Lord, delivered in solemn refrain. On 
rolled the stately Latin, until my sense 
of rhythm was so excited that I could not 
stir from the spot. I tried to count the 
priests, but I could not, for in the far 
coiner the shade was so deep that I 
could see nothing save now and then 
white hair glistening indistinctly, or the 
momentary display of a wrinkled face, 
patient and serene. 1 wondered what 
these celibates, sitting in the artistic 
gloom of the cathedral, thought, if they 
thought at all. of insurrections and 
things political ; of Alfonso's marriage, 
or the insidious workings of the Black 
Hand. How did the outer world impinge 
on their senses? I might have been 
speculating there until now, had not 
the round-voiced singing gradually died 
away, and the lights grown more and 
more dim, until it seemed as if the 
veteran chanters had melted into the 
incense-laden air. Presently two or 
three dignitaries, in trailing robes, came 
out of the obscurity, and, traversing the 
nave of the church, went away by the 
side doors, each courteously begging the 
other to precede him, with as much 
dignity and deference as would have 
been shown by two courtiers. 

Why do not the mortal remains of 
the Cid lie in this old church, in the town 
which ho took, sword in hand, from the 



90 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Minus? The cathedra] was not begun days later, in Madrid. "No republic," 

until more than a century after his death ; said he '• however durable it might be, 

but he should have had a niche here, would be likely to interfere with the 

The treasures of the cathedral are count- church in Spain." — "Our country," 

less. There are few churches in the said Don Emilio, with solemnity, "is 

world which would so richly repay an in- Catholic." And it is Catholic, because 

vading army for pillaging its sacristy, the sensuous temperament, which is so 

Gold and silver, and marble and bronze, prominent in even the rudest of the 

have been lavished upon it in such pro- Spaniards, cannot permanently escape 

fusion that now and then the beggars in from the enchantment of a religion so 

the sheets must ask themselves why it abounding in the picturesque and the 

is that the good God, who sent his Son impressive. 

down to earth to be born in a manger, I had not promised to carry you to 
needs so much luxury in his earthly the royal wedding in this chapter, hut we 
biding-place, when they are, perforce, will now no longer loiter by the way, 
content with a crust of bread, onions for Come to Madrid, which is, in winter, in 
dessert, ami more kicks than half-pence ? the midst of the desolate plains, a eold 
This little visit to the cathedral in Va- contrast to the warmth and gloom of Va- 
lencia enabled me to appreciate mote leucia and its environing valleys, 
fully what Castelar said to me a few 



FJJROPF TN STORM AND CALM. 



91 



CHAPTER NINE. 



Madrid and its Gloom. — The Royal Wedding in 1870. — Queen Christina and King Alfonso. — 
The Puerta del Sol. — The Church of the Atocha. — Memories of Dona Isabel. — Royal Rejoicings. 
— An Interview with Castelar. — Gambetta and Castelar Compared. 



AFTER the laughing landscapes of 
southern Spain, the vistas of blue 
mountains, of plains filled with olive 
and pomegranate trees, and the superb 
gardens of Seville and Cordova, the 
barren hills and wind-swept plains near 
the Spanish capital are far from inspir- 
ing. The sparkling saving of John 
Hay, that "Madrid is a capital with 
malice aforethought," is unlike most 
epigrams, in this respect, that it is quite 
true. There Is, too, a kind of ill-nature 
in the landscape about Madrid ; one falls 
inevitably to thinking of the Inquisition 
and the cruel Spaniards of the older 
days. Here and there a monastery is 
perched on a. crag, or rounded hill. A 
few suspicious-looking peasants stand 
huddled together, as if meditating an 
attack upon the train. Even the bulls 
grazing near the tracks lift their noble 
heads, and gaze at the passer-by with a 
kind of latent ferocity. At Aranjuez, 
where I arrived just at sunset after the 
journey from Valencia, there was a. hint 
of modernism in the architecture; and 
the well-kept gardens and the view of 
the handsome summer palace of the 
kings of Spain called to mind the mem- 
orable occasion when the people went 
in noisy procession to that place, to 
signify to the trembling monarch of that 
time — the stormy days of l.so.s — that 
they had had enough of him. Castelar 
dates the decline of Spanish monarchy 
as an institution from that period. 



Very beautiful were the groves and 
the parks around Aranjuez. The yellow 
leaves — yes. the golden leaves, for in 
the brilliant November sunshine they 
seem tinged with gold — had fallen in 
great masses, and strewn the long tree- 
bordered alley- ways with carpets such 
as the hand of man could not rival. 
The valleys were filled with rich bouquets 
of foliage. The retreat seemed more 
like the abode of peace and philosophy 
than like a royal residence around which 
revolution has often raged. After 
Araujuez the barrenness begins again, 
and the contrast is all the more striking 

because of tin' beautiful oasis \\ liicl e 

has just, quitted. 

I found the Madrid railway-station 
crowded with gayly dressed officers and 
with dirty omnibus-drivers. The former 
class was so occupied with saluting each 
other that it gave me no trouble; but 
the latter tribe was so aggressive that I 
was compelled to fray a passage through 
them, and to threaten as well as coax 
before I could ensure attention at a rea- 
sonable price, even for Spain. Presently, 
seated with a travelling-companion, in 
one of the large four-seated omnibuses, 
which are numerous in Madrid, and are 
marked " Servicio publico," 1 found my- 
self dashing at breakneck pace through 
muddy and irregularly paved streets. 
My vehicle had three horses, an old black 
hitched ahead of two venerable white 
ones ; but when this equine trio started 



92 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

it really seemed as if the prince < if witch- looking down upon the great square, 
craft had applied the lash. Away we From below came up a roar such as one 
went, nearly knocking down the unhappy hears when near a camp. This was the 
octroi officers, who desperately endeav- roar of the sovereign people of Madrid, 
ored to climb up on the steps and in- discussing, selling, buying, threatening, 
quire if we had anything dutiable. We laughing, snarling. There is not such 
had only time to cry, ii Nada" (nothing), another noisy place in Europe, nor one 
and to cling on, before we were rushing that in the course of a single day pre- 
pasl half a hundred tall white and yellow sents such an enormous variety of 
buildings. We soon passed the olive aspects. In 1869, during the revolu- 
avenucs of the Prado, and were mount- tion, it was amusing to watch the uews- 
ing the hill of the Calle Alcala. We venders, who possess all the impetuous 
firmly expected to be rolled against the energy of their American prototypes, 
curb-stones: but the black horse, as if In a few days eighteen or twenty mush- 
inspired, tore around every obstruction, room journals sprang into existence in 
and the whites sprang after him. Madrid, their columns filled with the 
And the l'uerta del Sol? It was a most exaggerated political jargon. Old 
vision of an immense square, with a women, barefooted and bareheaded, 
vast fountain in the centre, and lofty stalked to and fro, screaming forth the 
buildings, with balconies on every side, merits of the Equality, the Discussion, 
Ten streets open into this place, and and the Combat. In their wake followed 
from each one of them, as we arrived, ragged urchins, urging the claims of the 
came forth interminable processions of Impartial, the Diary of the People, the 
mules laden with straw, and hay, and Epoch, and the Correspondence. I re- 
wine, and oil ; of soldiers in long coats member that, curious to hold in my 
and short coats, in white jackets covered hand one of the smallest ami newest of 
with silver braid, in blue surtouts and red the journals, I beckoned to an old crone 
trousers; of little brown-faced boys, to follow me to a neighboring cafe", there 
selling photographs of doubtful morality ; selected my paper, ami searched my 
of old women, screaming forth the names pockets for the proper coin with which 
of newspapers ; of asthmatic old men, to pay; but I found no small change. 
wrapped to the eyes in long cloaks, and The venerable vender had none, refused 
with sombreros drawn over their lean ray proffered gold piece, demanded her 
faces ; of priests, majestic in their paper back, and overwhelmed me with 
ample robes of black; of cavaliers re- expletives and objurgations. A tall, 
turning from the park; of a group of grave Spaniard seated near me arose, 
conscripts singing merrily to the music touched his hat courteously, produced 
of jingling guitars; and of senoritas of from his pocket the proper money, paid 
all classes, morals, and conditions, each the woman, handed me the paper, which 
with a black lace veil falling gracefully she had already taken from me, and, 
about her pretty head. Every third man when I desired to pay him, held up his 
was a soldier, and seemed quite con- hands in sign of protestation. Then he 
tented to be such. He was always neat, resumed his seat, ami straightway ig- 
and uniformed with excellent taste. I nored my existence. 
soon found myself installed in a hand- But to the Royal Wedding! A mat- 
some room in the Hotel de la l'aix, rimonial alliance with the Austrian lady 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



93 



was felt to be an important movement, 
and was doubtless recognized by the 
church as a kind of moral support for 
it; for Austria and Spain are eminently 
Catholic, and their united action might 
now and then offset the invading in- 
fluence of the northern Protestant 
powers in a great European struggle. 
The aristocratic society of Europe was 
invited to the festivities attendant upon 
this Spanish wedding; and to welcome 
the hundreds of fashionable guests, tin- 
old Spanish Court brought forth the 
remnants of its ancient splendor, and 
succeeded in impressing every one with 
the luxury of its ceremonials and the 
stateliness of its dignity. The pro- 
gramme of the royal wedding comprised 
a grand riveiUe, or "Diana," as it is 
called in Spain,»to begin at seven. This 
was on the morning after my arrival. 
All the troops of the garrison and thou- 
sands sent in from the neighboring towns 
took part in this early bugle call. The 
places of the Atoeha, the Botauico, the 
Tiado, the Calle Alcala, the Calle 
Mayor, the Arco de la Armeria. the Plaza 
de Oriente, and all the other principal 
avenues and squares of the capital, 
rang with the inspiring martial music. 
Presently came the soldiers, marching 
with the long swinging step for which 
they are renowned, and looking neither 
to right nor left. The impression which 
strangers received was that the govern- 
ment was inclined to take no chances on 
this important occasion, and had made 
the "Diana" a pretext for tilling 
Madrid with troops, which could, if 
necessary, overawe any revolutionary 
crowds. The decorations were profuse 
on the hotels and chief commercial es- 
tablishments, but few private mansions 
bad either flags or illuminations. ( Iver 
the door of the Ministerio de la Gober- 
nacion was a gigantic "Viva Alfonso 



XII." in gas-jet letters, and upon it was 
a crown, which when lighted had an 
enormously unsteady air. By ten 
o'clock in the morning the masses of 
the people were arranged in rows along 
the whole royal line of inarch, from the 
palace to the Atoeha church, where 
the ceremony was to take place. 

This Atoeha is a rather inferior-looking 
religious edi lice, which belonged originally 
to a convent of the Dominican order, 
founded under Charles V. by one of his 
officers. It was destroyed in 1808. 
Ferdinand VII. had it rebuilt under the 
direction of the celebrated architect Isi- 
doro Velasquez, and the church served 
as a Court chapel. The tradition 
requires that the kings of Spain should 
go every Saturday to attend service at 
the Atoeha,. There is an ancient statue 
of the Virgin in this church, which is 
held in high veneration in Spain. In 
the chapel, on the left on entering, is 
the mausoleum raised to the memory of 
Marshal Prim, who unwittingly did good 
work for the young king, and whose end 
was tragic enough to have pleased his 
worst enemies. 1 observed with some 
amusement that two members of the 
corps of gendarmes were sufficient to 
control the movements of six or seven 
thousand impatient people on the Puerta 
del Sol. In New York or Paris two 
hundred policemen certainly would have 
been necessary. The soldiers, who 
were ranged in rows on either side of 
the route chosen for the royal pair to 
pass over going to anil coming from the 
church, were treated with small deference 
by the crowd ; but it was mortally afraid 
of the iji ndarmes. 

It was announced that the king would 
leave the palace at eleven o'clock; but 
this was too much to expect of a Span- 
iard, who is never ready at the appointed 
time, although exactitude is said to be 



94 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

the politeness of sovereigns; and it was tion to ms courtesies. As the king's 
nearly mid-day when a hum in the crowd, carriage passed the Ministerio de la Go- 
and the music of the military bands bernacion a long procession of slate ear- 
announced the j"Oung monarch's coming, riages, containing the Archduchess Chris- 
The first item in the royal procession tina — so soon to be the queen — and her 
was a very gayly liveried gentleman, suite, came into view, and bugles sounded 
mounted on a liorse laden with two anew. A thrill of music ran along the 
drums. He looked something like the martial lines, and the monarch and his 
advance-guard of a rustic circus. From bride moved on to the Atocha through 
time to time he heat a doleful measure the Carera de San Jeronimo. Nothing 
on the drums. Just behind him were could have been prettier than the rich 
twelve trumpeters, chid in ancient cos- contrasts of color in velvets lined with 
tumes, and next came twenty-two led- silver, banners and uniforms; and the 
horses, beautifully caparisoned. Behind military display was quite beautiful. 
the heralds anil the led-horses were The officials of the Court were legion. 
lancers, gendarmes, and a few Court Queen Isabel always had a special 
officials; then came a lone procession of affection for the Atocha, and bestowed 
state carriages, twenty-three in number, upon it: the most magnificent gifts. 
These ancient vehicles, swung high he- After the events of 1872 it was in this 
tween ponderous wheels ami balance- same chinch that one of her successors, 
springs, with which not even the misery King Amadeo the first and last, went to 
of a Spanish highway could interfere, view tin- corpse of General Prim, whose 
lumbered past the throng without elicit- murder had added another and notable 
ing a single cheer. It was amusing to one to the long list of Spanish political 
witness the coldness of the reception, assassinations. Doha Isabel was quite 
One might have fancied the populace overcome by her visit to the church on 
contemplating the passage of an enemy's the wedding-day; and when she entered 
troops through its countiy. On the l'u- with the procession, and the patriarch of 
erta del Sol not a hat was lilted, and hut the Indies came bowing forward to offer 
few ladies wa\'cd handkerchiefs when the her the holy water, she wept, and appeared 

king's carriage came in sight. This car- likely to faint. Perhaps she was think- 

riage was an enori is structure, with a ing of the fleeting nature of this world's 

crown on its roof, and with meat win- pleasures, and that the church in which 

dows. through which the crowd might her sou was then to he married might 

note every movement of its sovereign, serve in the future for more melancholy 

It was preceded by four and six horse ceremonies in connection with her family 

carriages, and by a multitude of out- than those of matrimony. 

riders, footmen, and jockeys. The dis- There was a stately company in the 

play of plumes and rich silver and gold little church. The gentlemen of the 

trappings, and of housings centuries household seemed numerous enough for 

old, was quite dazzling. The king's car- a legislature. There was the suite of 

riage was drawn by eight white horses, the Infanta Dona Christina, the suite of 

covered with pinnies and with silver dec- ex-Queen Isabel, the first groom, the 

orations. The young king was sedate, major domo of sen ice. the Dukes of 

and bowed repeatedly to right and left. Sexto and Encedo, and the Count of 

although no one paid the slightest atten- Pilar. The ex-queen entered the church 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



95 



to the music of the Royal March, and 
she, as well as the king and the arch- 
duchess were received at the door by the 
Papal Nuncio, who is a most important 
personage in such a Catholic country as 
Spain, and by a multitude of richly 
robed priests. Among the great ladies 



the archduchess ; and a host of pretty 
princesses. Dona Isabel wore a crown 
of diamonds, and a sumptuous mantle 
covered with gold lace and ornaments, 
the train of which was upheld by two 
stately gentlemen. The king was in the 
uniform of a captain-general, with the 








WEDDING OF ALFONSO XII. 



€ 



present, looking intensely, and some of 
them rather sternly, at the future queen as 
she came up the central aisle, were the 
Duchesses of Medina Coeli, Almodova 
del Valle ; the Countess of Toveno Caste- 
jon and Viamauuel ; the Marchioness of 
Santa Cruz; the Duchess of Fernand- 
Nunez, of Ahumada ; the Duchess of 
Baileu, wife of him who was sent to 
Vienna officially to demand the hand of 



Order of the Golden Fleece ami an 
Austrian field -marshal's scarf. 

The young archduchess seemed to limit 
into the church in a cloud, so voluminous 
was her veil of white, heavily bordered 
with silver lace. When it was lilted 
back', her toilette excited a general cry of 
admiration, so rich was it in embroideries 
of flowers and leaves in gold and silver, 
and laurels and white roses in profusion. 



'.)<; 



EUROPE IX STOh'M AND CADI. 



The diadem which crowned her head was 
of pearls, such as only the Hapsburgs, 
the richest family in the world, can show. 
The archduchess was mortally pale. 
Tin' spiteful ladies of the Court said it 
was because of the weight of the robe 
and tin' velvets which she wore. But 
she soon recovered, and arrived, smiling, 
at the grand altar, which was illuminated 
with hundreds of lights ; and there she 
met the king, who took her by the hand. 
Then came the usual Catholic ceremonial 
of marriage, the signing of the act, and 
the benediction by the Patriarch of the 
Indies, — -all of which was of brief dura- 
tion. Those who have never seen the 
splendors of a Court can form hut a 
small idea of the richness of the toilettes 
of the ladies who witnessed this spec- 
tacle. Many of the beauties wore two 
hands of velvet embroidered with silver, 
which are emblematic of their rank ; and 
on their glossy braids diadems worth 
fortunes rested. The mantles, the 
dresses, the collars, the corsages, were 
all of the richest material. One could 
well have fancied, in looking at this 
superb display of luxurious dresses, 
that Spain was one of the richest, rather 
than one of the poorest, countries in 
Europe. It is a source of perpetual 
wonder to a stranger in Spain, where the 
money comes from for the tens of thou- 
sands of soldiers and officers elegantly 
dressed, as well as for the luxury of 
private and public palaces and mansions. 
The wedding afforded the chance for a 
grand display of foreign uniforms. Lord 
Napier was magnificent in his scarlet, 
and was accompanied by some extremely 
handsome young Englishmen. The 
French Embassy shone like a golden 
star. The sombre blue-black of the 
Prussians stood out in bold relief against 
the splendors of the garments of their 
late enemies, the Austrians and the 



Gauls. The delegation of tin 1 belles of 
Vienna, who accompanied the 1 arch- 
duchess, made the beautiful Madrid 
women handle their fans with as nervous 
and jealous an air as if they had been 
stilettoes. 

After the wedding came the visits of 
the legislative bodies, the Council of 
State, and the municipal organizations, 
to the palace ; and on the following day 
was held a ceremonial which is seen in 
few monarchical countries, the ]!<tis<- 
main, or a defile before the king and 
queen at the palace, and the kissing of 
the hitter's hand by all the represent- 
atives of all the different branches of 
the national authority. This was a 
brilliant reception which repeated the 
splendors of the gathering in the Atocha 
chapel. The Council of State arrived 
at the palace in a lot of old carriages, 
which looked as if they were invented 
before the time of Columbus, as very 
likely they were. The royal palace is 
very grand within, though it is not very 
impressive without. In the great Hall 
of the Ambassadors, the young king 
stood in front of his throne, with the 
new queen <>n his right, looking very 
pale and pretty in her splendid gar- 
ments, laden with embroideries and cov- 
ered with golden fleurs-de-lis. On her 
head she wore a golden crown, gar- 
nished with costly diamonds. Near her 
stood the Princess of the Asturias, 
dressed in rose-colored satin, and the 
king's two other sisters in faille rose. 

Not far from the king and queen st 1 

the Court, a brilliant collection of all 
the ladies and gentlemen of rank in 
the kingdom, the representatives at the 
Court and the generals of the army. 
The ceremonial required that no one 
should touch the king's hand with his 
or with her hand, but only with the 
lips, and that after having used the 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



97 



pocket-handkerchief. Doiia Isabel re- 
ceived in her own rooms in another 
wing of the palace, and the day finished 
with a grand ball at the opera. 

Five years have passed since the 
wedding, and the young king is still in 
his place, although revolution has sev- 
eral times raised its head. The strength 
of his position is due merely to the in- 
numerable petty differences of the Lib- 
erals, and to the weakness of the lower 
classes, because of their ignorance. 
Out of the sixteen or seventeen mil- 
lions of people in Spain not more than 
one-fourth can claim acquaintance with 
the accomplishments of reading and 
writing. Furthermore, the knowledge 
of events transpiring in the outside 
world is so limited that a campaign 
speaker, if he were allowed by the gov- 
ernment any chance to express his 
views, would scarcely be understood 
by his constituents or by those whom 
he desired to make his constituents. 
Even rich peasants and men of high 
rank are grossly ignorant of what is 
transpiring in their own country. The 
perpetual " I don't know," with which 
every question is answered in Spain, 
becomes exasperating to a stranger. 
The facilities for anything like rapid 
intercommunication are so limited that 
the masses mingle but little together. 
Each remains rooted to his place, sur- 
rounded by a flowering growth of tra- 
ditions, superstitions, and prejudices. 
Each imagines that an army which can 
act as mediator in any important dis- 
pute is a good thing, and it seems as 
natural to a Spaniard to hear the trum- 
pets sound the death-knell of a short- 
lived revolution as to note the ringing 
of the vesper bells in the old cathedral 
which casts its shadow on his dwelling. 

The monarchists are very fond of re- 
minding Castelar that when he was 



president of the short-lived Republic 
he found it necessary to become Dicta- 
tor, and that at Carthagena and else- 
where he had announced that one of 
the principal needs of Spain was more 
infantry, more cavahy, and more artil- 
lery. In short, monarchy finds an 
excuse for its existence in the assump- 
tion that it alone can maintain order. 
When the people cease to believe this, 
and are united, some great convulsion, 
like that at Valencia, will take place in 
each of the principal cities and districts, 
and — But we will not prophesy. 

I have spoken of Castelar, who is 
undoubtedly the greatest Spaniard of 
his time, and towers like a giant even 
among the celebrities with whom he is 
surrounded. Madrid is filled with 
scholars, poets, and men of letters, 
whose reputation ought, although it 
does not succeed in doing so, to cross 
the Pyrenees. There are notable poets 
and romancers in Spain, who are quite 
the equals, if not in some respects the 
superiors, of their French contempora- 
ries. 

The gentlemen who are liberal and re- 
publican in sentiment are grouped about 
Castelar, and at the private receptions in 
the capital politics and literature are 
carefully and earnestly discussed, al- 
though in the newspapers and in public 
halls the government would forbid such 
license. I was glad of an opportunity 
to meet Castelar in his own house, and 
at one of his weekly receptions, which 
took place a day or two after the con- 
clusion ofthe wedding festivities. Senor 
Castelar was not seen in public during 
these festivals, although he is by no 
means shunned by the royal family, all 
of whom have the most cordial admira- 
tion for his talents. 

Castelar lives in the Calle de Serrano, 
in a fine new quarter of Madrid, in one 



98 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of those huge apartment-houses which 
the Spaniards have 1 milt in imitation of 
those in Paris and Vienna. The orator 
and statesman receives once or twice a 
week ; but as he is a bachelor, residing 
with his sister, who has always cared for 
his household affairs, he has only gentle- 
men at his entertainments. The deputies, 
journalists, poets, novelists, savants, 
come and go in the most informal fashion. 
I found the great orator in one of his 
good moods, when he felt like talking, and 
discovered that when he was in this vein 
everybody listened with reverence and 
attention. There is a rare magnetism in 
his presence, which is peculiarly fascinat- 
ing. An impression of superabundant 
vitality, an infinite reservoir, from which 
he canfrecly draw at unexpected moments 
for sudden and unlooked-for inspiration, 
i^ always gained from a conversation 
with Castelar. He is one of the men 
born under a happy star. Dowered with 
strange and peculiar gifts, lie combines 
the richness of a poetic nature with the 
forethought and sagacity of a patriot and 
politician. Perhaps there are those who 
would deny Castelar the union of these 
two qualities, but time will show that he 
possesses them in high degree. 

Castelar does not. look as if the world 
wearied him. lie is still young and 
active, and full of the Spanish politeness 
and grace. He has a noble, animated 
face, tii in, and full of decision, and a 
pair of well-made lips, shaded by a 
dense black mustache. The top of the 
head is bald, — a tribute paid to hard 
study. He is quite unostentatious in 
dress and manner. In conversation he 
expressed the liveliest sympathy and 
admiration for the United States, and 
especially for the talents of Mr. .lames 

Russell Lowell, who was so acceptable 
a minister to Madrid. " 1 was," said 
Castelar, " a firm friend to the >iorth 



during the revolution of the Southern 
States against the general government, 
and sometimes I had to encounter for- 
midable opposition." This led to a great 
debate on the slavery question of Cuba, 
which was then [lending in the Cortes. 
Castelar said little concerning the future 
of Cuba, except that there was no longer 
danger of its being a bone of contention 
between Spain and the United States. 
He said in the debate he should be found 
as usual on the side of liberty, and in 
favor of emancipation id' every wretched 
black in Cuba. 

I asked Castelar if he felt, that the 
Republic would come again in Spain. 
" Most certainly," he said ; ••the country 
is republican. The restored monarchy 
lias not taken root. Republican princi- 
ples are well enough established in the 
public mind, but they are not entirely 
underst 1. Great numbers of our peo- 
ple still have a certain fondness for ab- 
solutism." A moment afterwards he 
alluded in a jocose vein to the great 
number of constitutions which Spain has 
promulgated within the last two genera- 
tions. He has a profound contempt for 
those politicians who fancied that they 
could make the Spanish people all over 
in a day by writing them a creed to live 
under. Castelar did good work during 
his brief tenure of executive power. He 
did not hesitate to break away from the 
project in favor of federalism when he 
saw it was doing the country harm. If 
the assembly had not been weak and 
vacillating he would not have been com- 
pelled to resign, and the Spanish Repub- 
lic might have been in existence to-day. 
He drove the spectres of socialism and 
extreme federalism back to the darkness 
out of which they had come. He insisted 
upon the necessity of education. When 
he demanded the renewal of his powers 
by the Assembly, in January. 1874, he set 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



99 



downasacardinal principle, that theeraof 
popular uprising and pronunciamientos 
must be closed forever. But Pavia with 
his troops came in, and, said Castelar, 
it was too late. There was not a more 
deserted man in Spain 
than himself. So Serrano 
took up the burden of 
power, and carried it 
until the arrival of the 
young Alfonso. 

" Castelar," said a 
Spanish nobleman to me, 
•■ is the republican party 
in Spain. Without him 
it would fall into a hun- 
dred fragments. He puts 
the breath of life into 
its nostrils. If he were 
to withdraw his support 
from it, it would expire 
of inanition." Another 
influential Spanish gen- 
tleman said that Castelar 
was impracticable and 
unworldly to a certain 
extent in many things, 
but possessed the exact 
knowledge of the con- 
flicting elements of Span- 
ish Republicanism neces- 
sary to bring out of them 
the little harmony possi- 
ble. Castelar learned 
Opportunism from Gam- 
betta ; in fact, he would, 
I think, lie willing to 
admit this. If he is an 
Opportunist to-day it is 
because he has seen 
that little can be ac- 
accomplished in a day or a month in re- 
establishing liberty, but that the slow 
progress of years alone can give impor- 
tant results. After the flight of Dona 
Isabel and the uprising of Carlists, Mod- 



erates, Communists, Progressists, Mon- 
archical Democrats, and Republicans 
desirous of federal form, and after the 
dazzling events from 1868 until the 
" Restoration," he is justified in suppos- 




CA8TELAK AT HOME. 

iug that the country needs rest before 
venturing upon a final effort for the re- 
establishment of her ancient liberties. 

Castelar in the Legislative Assembly as 
an orator is a demigod. Gambetta at 



100 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



limes was wonderful. Castelar is often 
sublime. Gambetta had electric effects 
of eloquence which appalled and some- 
times annihilated his enemies. Castelar 
seems to lift his hearers into the seventh 
heaven, and to move them with him 
among the golden vapors of the dawn. 
Gambetta was crushing : Castelar is 
persuasive. Gambetta was vindictive ; 
Castelar is of too large a mould to cou- 
descend to vengeance. Both orators will 
be chronicled in history as having pos- 
sessed unlimited command of metaphors 
and lovely imagery, never degenerating 
into the commonplace. Castelar says 
that he is nervous on days when he is 
to speak in the Cortes. He wanders 
about restlessly among his friends, ex- 
pressing doubts as to his power of self- 



control. One might almost fancy him 
at these times a school-boy about to 
speak his first piece ; but when once he 
has begun, in sonorous voice, everything 
like fear vanishes, and he pours forth a 
flood of irresistible argument, clothed in 
exquisitely felicitous language. It is 
odd that Castelar's voice, which iu ordi- 
nary conversation has a certain soft, 
feminine quality in it, is clear, robust, 
and harmonious in the tribune. When he' 
is tremendously excited, as on the occa- 
sion of his great speech in favor of 
liberty of conscience and freedom of 
public worship, made in April of 1869, 
the voice is inexpressibly grand. One 
seems to hear the soul speaking without 
any hindrance whatever. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



101 



CHAPTER TEN. 

The Bull-Fight in Madrid before the King and Queen. — Eight Bulls Slaughtered. — A Strange Sport. 
— Excitement of the Populace. — The Matador. — Duels between Men and Beasts. 



AT one of the exhibitions of paint- 
ings in the Paris Palace of Indus- 
try a promising American artist showed 
a picture of a combat between an As- 
syrian monarch and a lion in an 
arena, where thousands of spectators 
were assembled to witness the daring of 
their king. As I sat in the Plaza de 
Toros of the Spanish capital ou the oc- 
casion of the great bull-fight given in 
celebration of the wedding festivities of 
King Alfonso and Queen Christina, 
while watching the bull who had just 
bounded in from his cage and was stand- 
ing with his head proudly raised, eying 
the populace of Madrid and the gavly 
uniformed butchers awaiting him, — this 
picture came distinctly before my 
eyes, and I was startled by the thought, 
that, in our modern day, more than nine- 
teen centuries after the inauguration of 
an era supposed to be one of mercy, 
forbearance, and peace, the world is as 
brutal and unmerciful as everitwasin the 
dim ages of barbarism. I cannot explain 
the revolt which then took place in my 
spirit ; I might call it an insurrection 
of conscience, because I had allowed 
myself to have assisted at so murderous 
and bloody a sport as a bull-tight. I 
defy any one who has not been hardened 
to this monstrous sight to feel otherwise 
than criminal when he first gets an idea 
of the atrocious horror of it. But enough 
of preliminary moralizing. 

When the royal wedding was an- 
nounced it was naturally decided that 
bull-tights should be among the festivi- 



ties. Had there been any disposition 
to refuse them there might have been 
something like a riot. Time has been 
when the people in the immense plaza 
have cried out, " Death to the Mayor ! " 
because he would not allow them to wit- 
ness the killing of one or two more bulls 
than were promised in the programme. 
"Bread and Shows" were the necessities 
which not even tyrants dared deny the 
ancient Romans. " Bread and Bulls, 
Pa n y Toros" are the prime needs of 
the modern Spaniards. Not even the 
gentlest Spanish woman finds it extraor- 
dinary that her children should witness 
a bull-fight. In Madrid there are 
twenty-four exhibitions yearly : on Mon- 
days, from April to October, or some- 
times on Sundays, — for Sunday is in 
Spain, as in France, the people's favorite 
holiday. All over Spain there are 'null- 
rings which rival the colossal dimen- 
sions of the amphitheatres of the Romans. 
Valencia possesses one, which, at a dis- 
tance, looks as imposing as the Roman 
Coliseum. " And what ! " say the Span- 
iards ; " what ! shall we give up a game 
inaugurated by him of illustrious and 
immortal memory, the Cid Campeador : 
he who, in the arena, with his own lance, 
slew wild bulls by the score?" 

The Arabs have the credit of introduc- 
ing the cruel pastime into Spain ; but it 
was the Cid who gave it its real impetus. 
After he had set the example all the 
youths of the nobility copied it, and at 
solemn festivals the corrida cle toros 
was one of the main features. The 



102 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



honor of fighting the Imll on great clays 
was accorded only to the nobility. An 
ordinary mortal was not supposed to 
possess the requisite strength and sci- 
ence. Throughout the middle ayes luill- 
fighting was the favorite amusement of 
warriors in these southern lands. When 
Isabel the Catholic tried to prohibit the 
ghastly fun she found she did not pos- 
sess influence enough to do it. After her 
time the sport became so popular that 
Charles the Great did not disdain with 
his own hand to slay a hull upon the 
market-place of Valladolid. Pizarro, 
who conquered rem. was a brave bull- 
fighter, and so was King Sebastian of 
Portugal. Philip III. adorned the hull- 
ring of Madrid with statues and banners ; 
Philip IV. fought therein; Charles II. 
loved the game; Philip V. issued an 
official order thai bull-rings should he 
constructed throughout the kingdom. 

All these days no man of the people 
was allowed to enter the arena, ami it 
was not until the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century that peasants and com- 
mon folk in general were permitted to 
become professional toreros. Francisco 
Romero de Rondfi introduced the usage 
of fighting the bull <>n foot, sword in 
hand ; and from his time date the lixed 
rules of this difficult art, which in our 
davs have had such illustrious professors 

as Frascuelo, Lagartijo, and Alonzo. 
Queen Isabel was an enthusiastic patron 

of the spoil. Amadeo. of Italy, pre- 
tended to like it. while he was King of 
Spain ; but it is to be presumed that his 
delicate ami refined nature suffered tor- 
tures at tin' sight. How can the present 
king refuse to attend upon and support 
with all his influence an institution as 
truly national in Spain as the Sabbath- 
school in the United Stales? 

The Plaza de Toros of Madrid is 
supposed by dint of much crowding 



(o accommodate sixteen thousand per- 
sons, although there are seats for only a 
few more than twelve thousand. For 
the two courses in honor of tin' royal 
wedding festivities there were more 
than fifty thousand applicants above the 
number which could be accommodated. 
Theoretically, no tickets wen' sold, ami 
every one was invited; but I will not 
dwell on that point, as. through I he 
courtesy of Sefior Saturnino Esteban 
Collantes. deputy in the Cortes, and a 
gentleman of distinction, I received in- 
vitations for both occasions. Hundreds 
of people from Madrid, Vienna, and 
London went away growling and disap- 
pointed, because they could not succeed 
ill gaining admission. The tickets of 
invitation were conceived as follows: — 



Plaza de Toros. 




I. a Corrida Extraordinaria 




( 'mi motivo ilt*l Rogio Enlace. 




Tendido Num. 




Este billete es de conyite v no 


puede 


venderse. El contraventor sera 


niesto 


a dlsposicion de la Autoridad. 





There were several thousand guests of 
rank and importance to place, for the 
ambassadors extraordinary of the Aus- 
trian delegation which accompanied the 
archduchess, now become the Queen of 
Spain, had brought in their train half 
the fashionable world. So there re- 
mained small place lor the populace; 
yet the populace was (here. How it 
got in I do not know; lint there it was, 
palpitating with savage delight at every 
pitiful throe of disembowelled horse or 
dying bull, yelling maledictions upon an 
unsuccessful picador or capeador, aud 



EUROPE n\ r STORM AND CALM. 



103 



breaking forth into the most extravagant 
expressions of delight and affection 
when an espada did his work well. 

The bull-ring, to call it by the prosaic 
English term, which best translates the 
high-sounding Plaza de Toros, is about 
a mile and a half from the centre of the 
city, on the outskirts of the barren plains 
which environ Madrid. It is reached by 
passing a superb archway, erected by 
Charles III., on the hill overlooking the 
Prado and the surrounding country, and 
thence- by a long avenue, bordered on 
either hand by elegant mansions, superb 
villas, and finally by manufactories, 
slaughter-houses, forges, and all the 
unsavory and unsightly appendage-; of a 
great city. On the day of this bull-fight 
the crowd, the invited and the uninvited, 
all went in a long procession down the 
broad and handsome Calle de Alcala, 
past the Prado, and through the gardens 
and avenues, in delighted haste, anxious 
to note ever}' detail of the festival. 
Hundreds of omnibuses, filled with holi- 
day-makers, pushed madly towards the 
centre of attraction. I will spare the 
reader any account of the epithets which 
the drivers of these vehicles applied to 
their horses, as few of the words are 
suited to Saxon ears polite. Men, 
women, and children, dressed with ex- 
cellent taste, hurried to the plaza with 
anticipations of joy written on their 
features. The beggars forgot to beg 
as the}' watched the lords and ladies. 
Brown Andalusians, in tattered cloaks, 
once magnificent, gazed sharply, as if 
picking out the person whom they had 
been told to assassinate. Muleteers and 
merchants, foreigners and natives, beau- 
ties and hags, old and young, poured 
along the roadways, babbling open-lipped 
and merrily ; and when they reached the 
yawning gate of the ring they ran tumult- 
uously through the lines of gendarmes 



in their appointed places, as if fearful 
lest they might lose a single detail of the 
performance. 

The ring is solidly built, and the gates 
through which the animals are admitted 
are of immense thickness. Huge corri- 
dors run round it, between the seats and 
the outer wall, and doors open upon 
stairways which lead to the various gal- 
leries. The politeness of Sefior Collantes 
had placed me in the front rank in the 
lower gallery, in what we should call an 
orchestra stall in a theatre, and at a 
point from whence I could well observe 
the king and queen and their suite. 
Once or twice during the afternoon it 
seemed to me that my seat was decidedly 
too near the ring, and I should have been 
gla,d to move. 

I had not been long seated before I 
discovered that the audience, or collec- 
tion of on-lookers, was intensely excited. 
Shouts arose answering shouts. The 
vast arena seemed to tremble under the 
concussion of sound. The arrival of any 
well-known person was the signal for a 
roar, which must have made the bulls 
quake in their prison. Officials ran to 
and fro, settling disputes between new- 
comers ; water-carriers and cigar-sellers 
screamed out the virtues of their wares, 
and from the upper galleries came clam- 
ors for the appearance of the popular 
favorites. The balconies were sumptu- 
ously decorated with orange and yellow, 
and with red velvet ; and crowns and 
coats-of-arms in different places indicated 
the presence of nobility. High up above 
all the galleries save one was the royal 
loge ; and, hearing the baud playing the 
march which announced the arrival of 
the King, I turned to see him. 

Alfonso XII. arrived briskly, dressed 
in a captain-general's uniform, with a 
cap entirely covered with gold lace. He 
had much improved in appearance since 



104 



EUROPE IN STORM ANT) CALM. 



his residence in Paris and Vienna. Side- 
whiskers and mustache gave a manly 
look to his fare, and his manners were 
simple and unaffected. The voting 
Queen wore a white mantilla upon her 
glossy braids. She sat down beside the 
King on the front rank, and there soon 
appeared behind the youthful pair the 
benevolent faees of numerous venerable 
Spanish and Austrian generals. Next 
came Dona Isabel and her pretty daugh- 
ters, and then an enormous following of 
ladies and gentlemen of the Court, who 
took possession of either side of the bal- 
cony. A large delegation of Austrian 
officers, their breasts glittering with 
dozens of decorations, sat on the side 
next the Queen. Alfonso XII. took up 
his opera-glass, and surveyed the audi- 
ence. When the royal march was fin- 
ished he raised his handkerchief, and 
made a signal. A chorus of bugles 
sounded from a balcony opposite the 
King and Queen. Gates were thrown 
open just beneath this balcony, and 
there entered — 

No, — not a hull, but a long and stately 
procession, which transported us back to 
the days of chivalry. First came the 
masters of ceremonies, dressed in Court 
suits of black velvet, and mounted on 
prancing steeds. Next followed a 
drummer on horseback, a. huge drum 
suspended on cither side of his horse's 
saddle. Then came four heralds, sound- 
ing bugles; alguazils; a provincial dele- 
gation ; then, in state carriages, the 
protectors of the toreadors of the occa- 
sion. These protectors are gentlemenof 
rank, who deign to confer the shadow 
of their dignity on the popular favorites. 
Reside these coaches, glittering in satin 
costumes in which all the colors of 
the rainbow were inextricably mingled, 
walked the men who were to fight the 
bulls on foot ; while behind them, 



mounted on starved-looking horses, came 
the picadors, wicked fellows, clad in 
braided jackets, buckskin hose, gar- 
nished within with stiff iron supports, 
so that when their horses fell upon them 
they might not have their legs broken. 
These picadors were armed with euoi- 
nious lances, pointed with sharp blades. 

Next in order was a small army of 
servants, dressed in scarlet jackets 
(forsooth, in a bull-ring!), and the rear 
was brought up with teams of mules, 
harnessed three abreast, and driven by 
picturesque brigands, whose duty was to 
be the clearing of the ring of the dead 
horses and bulls encumbering it. The 
procession wheeled round in front of the 
royal loge, and every person in it made 
low bows, to which the King responded 
by a stiff military salute. The trum- 
pets sounded loudly, and the procession 
went its ways, breaking up into fragments 
in various places in the ring. In front 
of the series of galleries which led to the 
royal box, and directly in the ring, stood 
a large corps of halberdiers, without any 
protection. The mishaps of these gen- 
tlemen at arms at frequent intervals 
during the performance were sources of 
immense and long-continued merriment 
to the crowd. 

And now the picadors, on their horses, 
held their lances at rest ; the marshals 
retired to a corner, looking somewhat 
uneasy ; the corps of capeadors, matadors, 
and espadas approached the barrier of 
the ring, behind which ran a corridor 
separating us. the spectators, by a short 
distance from the arena. This corridor 
was patrolled by gendarmes, court offi- 
cials in black, and by the friends of the 
performers in the ring. There were a 
few moments of silence ; then a deep 
" Ah ! " burst from the assemblage, and, 
looking over across the ring, I saw a 
magnificent bull standing in front of the 



EUROPE IN STAR. If AXD CALM. 



105 




106 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



gates, which were closing behind him. 
The Queen had given the signal with her 
handkerchief. I looked up at her, and 

she had half risen from her seat, as 
though she were anxious to go away. 
But an instant after she sat down again, 
and was apparently calm. 

The hull took a careful look at every- 
body. He seemed g 1-natured, and I 

thought that if I had been near him I 
should have liked to pull his tail. Hut 
what was my surprise' when he advanced 
with a long " lope," which quickly 
changed into a wild run ; and before 
any one could divert his attention he 
had plunged his horns into the flanks of 
the horse of one of the masters, of cere- 
monies. The poor beast darted forward, 
the blood gushing from his wounds, and 
the spectators began to yell to their 
favorites — the men in satin and rainbow 
colors — to begin the combat. At once 
an agile fellow sprang directly in front 
of the bull, holding a bright red cloak 
before the infuriated animal's eves. 
Master bull made a lunge at it. The 
nimble cape-bearer stepped aside, and 
another fluttered an orange-colored cloak 
at the bull's nose. Then half-a-dozen 
others appeared. The bull did not know 
which way to turn, lie pawed the earth ; 
he snorted. Suddenly, selecting one 
who was most daring, he went after him 
with such vindictive force thai the man 
paled, ran, and lightly as a feather 
leaped the barrier unhurt. The bull 
turned to another. Up and away went 
the a'wy fellow, almost between the bull's 
horns; yet safe, and grinning with the 
excitement. 

The bull was now terrible in his wrath ; 
and at this moment he noted a picador, 
sitting motionless on his horse, with his 
lance' ready. I arose in my seal, and, if 
I could, I should have fled, for it iced 
my blood to see both rider and horse go 



into the air, and the next moment to 
witness the agonies of the disembowelled 
horse. The picador was lying beneath 
his beast. Was he dead? No. He was 
helped up, looking black and ugly, and 
he took off his hat to the King. What 
had he done? There was a, gaping 
wound in the bull's shoulders, and the 
bull had withdrawn a few paces, and was 
thinking what to do next. Around him 
once more were fluttering the agile 
capeadors; capes and cloaks were danc- 
ing before the bull's vision. He rushed 
hither and yon, aiming at. death and de- 
struction. What was my horror to see 
the horse which had just been gored 
once more in the fray, his merciless rider 
charging him down upon the bull, while 
the entrails dragged on the ground. 
Some Spaniards laughed ; others, more 
merciful, shouted, "Fuera!" (Out with 
the horse). But no; the bull had him 
once more on his horns, and tore and 
rent him, while the picador, lying coolly 
behind the dying creature, lacerated the 
flank of his antagonist. It was horrible. 
I looked up at the young Queen. She 
had turned her eyes away, but a moment 
later, at the intimation of the King, she 
made a signal. 

Trumpets sounded, and the picador 
was extricated from his perilous position, 
while the men with the capes occupied 
the bull's attention. This was the signal 
to retire the horses, and to let the bande- 
rilleros begin their work. The bande- 
rille.ro comes on at the second stage of a 
bull-light. I felt glad to see the horses 
retire, and 1 noticed that I no longer felt 
sorry for the bull, since I had seen how 
devilish he was in his work. 1 was glad 
to know that it was to be put out of the 
way. Probably I was becoming brutal- 
ized. 

The bull was enraged because the 
horses were withdrawn, but thus far he 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



107 



felt that he had had the best of it. 
Still he looked his antagonists over in 
his steady, resolved way, and seemed 
saying to them, " What will yon have 
next?" 

He was not long without an answer. 
A daring fellow, in green tights, white 
silk stockings, and a jacket blazing with 
gold and jewels, ran up in front of him, 
holding in each hand a flexible dart, eu- 



iu the bull was aroused ; his motions 
were twice as rapid as before. Thou- 
sands of voices were screaming advice 
from the benches : Rafael, mind your 
steps! Well, well ! Muy Men! Lagar- 
tijo! demonio! Anda! Anda! Now, 
run for it ! Hombre ! What an ass ! 
burro I burritol Go home and bury 
yourself. Fnera .' Cara mba ! There he 
had it ! O my angel ! O Alonzo ! 




THE BULL HAS THE BERT OF IT. 



celoped in straw at one end. Quick as 
lightning the bull sprang at him, but the 
man went to one side, and the two darts 
were sticking in the animal's neck. It was 
as swift as thought. The banderillos made 
the bull crazy with rage. He shook him- 
self, but they entered more deeply into 
the skin ; he foamed at the mouth ; he 
was terrible. He ran at a knot of his 
enemies, and frightened them so that 
they fled in confusion, leaping the barrier. 
But others came ; new banderillos were 
stuck in the poor brute's hide. They 
whizzed through the air, some of them 
bearing little banners. Now all the devil 



Bravo! Here he comes! Es un lorn! 
Idiot! Can't you throw? Look out — 
look out — look out ! Is he dead ? No, 
not even scratched, but rather pale. Ah! 
the bull's tongue is out. No no I Si si! 
X,, hombre! Si Caballero! Oh! oh! 
oh! Dion! Enough, enough of bande- 
rillos! La Espada! The matador, — 
where is the killer, the brave, the beautiful 
matador? Ah! there he is ! See! lie 
is coming ! How beautiful his costume ! 
Tis satin. Ho! ho! ho! La Espada! 
Hist! There he is, kneeling before the 
king ! Now he takes off his hat and 
raises his arm. Now he makes his 



108 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



speech, and thrusts his cap away with a 
great sweeping gesture. It is as if he 
threw away his life at the same time. 
Si, Hombn ! Bravo Torn' Bravo el 
matador! Hoi It"! ho! ho! ho-o-o-o-o! 
Caramba ! " 

Then a greal silence fell. 

The matador took a red cloak in his 
hand, holding concealed beneath it a 
sword, short and stout of blade. He 
stepped gracefully and briskly to the 
bull, and held the red cloak directly 
before his eves. Bull flew at it. The 
■uiiitii'lor made a false step, saved himself, 
and looked up. pale and quivering, to 
hear a tempest of maledictions. The bull 
was after him again, and followed him. 
Lightly as thistledown flew to the rescue 
a dozen capeadors, who fluttered their 
cloaks in the bull's vision until he was 
diverted from his victim. Then they 
gradually brought him to a stand-still, 
and the matador came before him anew. 

Now began a horrible duel between 
man and beast. The cloth was within 
the bull's reach. lie plunged at. it, and 
seemed to annihilate the matador. But 
no; the man was always out of reach, 
and his gleaming blade was playing in 
the air. The bull was at hand. The 
cloak was before him. Ssst ! Down 
came the sword between the animal's 
fore-shoulders. But the bull, with a noble 
and impetuous motion, threw it out of the 
wound, from which the blood poured in 
large streams. The matador drew an- 
other sword, and the duel began again. 
Each time that he stabbed the beast but 
slightly the crowd cursed him. Then 
he redoubled his energy, and seemed to 
lose his prudence. By and by he made 
a flying leap. Every one stood up, think- 
ing to sec him cured to death. But no; 
he stood some yards away, pointing to the 
bull, in whose shoulders a sword was 
planted to the hilt. The King languidly 



applauded with his white-gloved hands. 
And the spectators ! It was Bedlam. 

The bull struggled, but the dreadful 
sword sapped his life. He rushed and 
ran, frothing, upon the agile cloak-bear- 
ers. They decamped, but returned as 
they saw the poor animal walk away a 
short distance and lie down, with his 
tongue out. They flew to him, and be- 
gan to tempt him to a renewal of the 
contest. This was most piteous of all. 
He looked up at them with glazing eyes, 
out of which all brutish malice had de- 
parted, as the great mystery of death 
overtook him, and he seemed struggling to 
say, " Come, caballeros, this is not fair. 
I am hurt and down, and there are too 
many of you ! I did not intend to carry 
it so far." In short, the bull seemed 
humanized, and the men brutalized, at 
this moment. I forgot about the gored 
horse. One of the executioners took a 
short dagger, drove it into the spinal 
marrow of the animal, and the trumpets 
sounded. The lirst tight was over. The 
bull fell on his side, and the gayly capar- 
isoned mules came in and dragged him 
ignominiously away. 

Then the matador came forward to 
receive the compliments of the spectators 
for his final adroit sword-thrust. His 
name was rapturously shouted ten thou- 
sand times. Hats rained upon him, and 
he tossed them back to their owners 
until his arms ached. Young swells 
threw their cloaks down to him that he 
might walk upon them. Cigars, fruit, 
ami money were cast at him. lie re- 
tired proud and contented. Had he 
been unsuccessful he would have re- 
ceived sticks and stones upon his humil- 
iated head. 

We had short respite. The trumpets 
sounded ; the picadors reappeared, and 
a new bull burst into the arena. This 
animal wasted no time. He drove all 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



109 



the cape-flutterers out of the ring, killed 
a horse in less than two minutes, sent 
a picador off on a stretcher, and took a 
tremendous dive at the halberdiers, who 
received him with lowered spears, but 
with blanching faces. He broke one or 
two of their spear-blades, kicked at 
them contemptuously, gored a second 
horse ; but here his star began to pale, 
for he received a terrific lance wound. 
This sobered him, and seemed to exhaust 
his energies. The capes could no lon- 
ger excite him. A spry and deft man 
pulled his tail, and stole the rosette from 
his back. He was no giant with a lance 
wound. The only thing which he did 
was mercifully to finish the second 
horse, which was in convulsions of 
agony. Then the banderiUos were planted 
in his neck, and a new matador finally 
despatched him. The crowd grew im- 
patient, and were glad when he was 
dead. He had promised well, but fin- 
ished badly. His debut as an artist was 
meteoric ; his career tame. Thus often 
in human life ; but no matter about the 
moral. 

Once more the trumpets, and another 
bull. It took him some time to realize 
the situation, but when he did realize it lie 
proceeded to business with an energy far 
superior to that of his immediate prede- 
cessor. He did not like the ring, and he 
leaped out of it. It seemed impossible 
for him to do it; but he did it, knockftg 
down half-a-dozen people in the corridor 
before mentioned. I was horrified to 
see him, as the door was opened to let 
him in again, tossing a gendarme on his 
horns. The unhappy man turned over 
and over. His sword fell from its 
sheath, and he was carried out, when the 
bull's attention had been diverted from 
him, covered with blood and wounds. 
The bull ran up and down once or twice, 
engaged in a tremendous duel with a 



picador, who was too much for him, and 
even kept him from goring his horse. 
This bull in his turn submitted to the 
agony of the banderiUos and the duel 
with the matador, who prolonged the 
animal's life so that the crowd execrated 
him because he had done much harm, 
and then sold his life dearly. 

And so, one after another, during al- 
most four hours, we saw eight bulls 
slaughtered. The only animals which 
were really terrifying were the third and 
the eighth. One of them was so in- 
dignant at a cape-bearer, who shook a 
red cloak in his face, that he followed 
him right over the barrier, causing an 
immense burst of laughter. In truth 
the sight was irresistibly comical. I 
thought of the Yankee phrase about the 
man who was " hurried over " the fence 
by the bull. This same animal charged 
the halberdiers twice ; but they filled 
his skin full of holes and put out one of 
his eyes. There were one or two fright- 
ful half-hours in this strange afternoon : 
half-hours, when a bull, dying, gored 
the horse which he had already slain ; 
when the odor of death arose from the 
ring ; when the smell of blood seemed 
to put savagery into all our souls ; when 
we felt a grim joy in each new wound 
inflicted on the bull, and when the flit- 
ting corps of executioners seemed en- 
dowed with supernatural skill. The 
last bull, which had not promised well 
at first, turned out to be a master 
fighter, and the principal matador had 
to use all his skill to bring him to his 
knees. The manner in which the bull 
looked at the matador had something 
awful in it, something so inexpressible 
that I will not try to define it. 

The King and Queen tried to retire 
when the seventh bull had been de- 
spatched ; but the people would not hear 
of it. They cried, "Otro toro ! Otro 



110 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



toro!" (another hull), in thunderous 
unison, and the King yielded. It must 
have been a severe trial for the Queen ; 
hut she sat through it all the while, and 
I observed that towards the last she 
looked on all the time. One speedily 
becomes accustomed to the spectacle, 
horrid as it is. So soon as the last hull 
was despatched, the thousands of per- 
sons dispersed peaceably, and so dense 
was the throng that carriages and 
pedestrians alike could only move at a 
snail's pace. The arena was wet with 

lil 1. In a recess of one of the outer 

corridors the eight bulls and the seven 



horses which had been their victims 
were lying in a row. The amphitheatre, 
with its stone scats and blood-stained 
sands, seemed Roman rather than Span- 
ish ; but Spanish it emphatically was. 
The bulls slain at this royal festival 
were furnished from the estates of dif- 
ferent gentlemen, who take great pride 
in raising them. The local journals 
publish the names of these gentry as 
well as the pedigrees of the bulls. On 
the day following the first great corrida 
there was a second bull-tight, at which 
eight bulls were to lie slain. But I did 
not go ; I had seen enough. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Ill 



CHAPTER ELEVEN. 

The Famous Museum in Madrid. — The Palace of the Cortes. — Noted Tapestries. — A Visit to Toledo. — 
The Spanish Cloak and its Characters. — A Fonda. — Bef^ars. — The Grotto of Hercules. — The 
Alcazar. — In the Ancient Church. 



THE great museum of painting in 
Madrid is one of the finest in the 
world ; and, for the lover of art, a 
ramble through its galleries is a rich 
compensation for the troubles and 
trials which he has had in his journey 
across the Pyrenees and down through 
the strange wastes, alternated with rich 
fields and fertile valleys, of northern 
Spain. The Spanish masses, although 
so rudely ignorant, have a general respect 
for art, and 1 was struck with the fact, 
during the Revolution of 1869, that no- 
where in the peninsula were the rich 
treasures of art in any way disturbed 
or injured. Even in the monasteries, 
through which the vindictive crowds of 
Valencian peasantry poured in 1868 and 
1869, the paintings were not touched. 
There was none of the iconoclastic bru- 
tality of the Belgian mobs in the days 
when the Spaniard carried persecution 
into the north. The museum of tin 1 
Prado, as it is generally called, was 
founded in 17.'!."), under the reign of 
Charles III., and according to the plans 
of a famous architect named Villa Nueva. 
It was originally designed to receive col- 
lections illustrating natural history ; but 
King Ferdinand VII. brought together 
there the great numbers of paintings 
which had been scattered through the 
different royal palaces; and in 181'.), 
alter immense sums had been expended, 
the museum was opened to the public. 
It offers, like so many things in Spain, a 
curious contrast of magniliceuee aud 



meanness. Many of the corridors and 
halls are badly lighted, and insufficiently 
fitted for the display of the splendid 
canvases which adorn them. The works 
of the masters are huddled together 
without any particular attempt at ar- 
rangement, and even the most adroit 
student of art comes away from the 
Prado with a bad headache and a confused 
vision of Titian, Tintoretto, Michael 
Angelo, Correggio, Guido, Mantegna, 
Andrea del Sarto, Paul Veronese, Velas- 
quez, Goya, Murillo, and Ribera, float- 
ing before his eyes. The Flemish school 
is naturally well represented, for the 
Spaniard has had ample opportunity to 
make rich collections in the northern 
lands ; and the Rubens gallery is remark- 
able both for the splendor of the canvases 
and for the great number of them. The 
citizens of Madrid are especially proud 
of the specimens of the Spanish school 
of painting, particularly of those of 
Velasquez, who was a great favorite of 
King Philip IV., and who died in Madrid 
in 1CG0. There arc threescore paintings 
from the hand of this noble artist in the 
Madrid Museum, and among the most 
celebrated of them are the famous 
''Christ on the Cross," — an admirable 
study of the nude of most elevated aud 
startling realism ; the noted " Bor- 
rachos," the "Vulcan's Forge;" the 
"Surrender of Breda;" and the won- 
derful " Menines." This celebrated pict- 
ure, which Luca Giardano called the 
" theology of painting," represents Velas- 



112 



FJ-ROVE IN STORM AND CALM. 



quez engaged upon the portraits of 
Philip IV. and others of the royal family, 
who are surrounded by their ladies of 
honor, the officers of the palace and their 
dwarfs. This dazzling page of color, 
and the other equally remarkable picture, 
known to art lovers as the " Fileuses," 
appear to justify the extravagant note 
of praise sounded by a French critic, who 
said that it seemed as if the hand (if 
Velasquez had taken no part in the 
execution of his works, but that all of 
them had been created by a pure act of 
volition on his part. In the Prado 
there are also forty-six pictures from the 
hand of Murillo ; and Ribera, the great 
naturalist, is represented by fifty-eight 
pictures, almost .Shakespearian in their 
variety of manner, composition, and 
style. Of Morales, of the amusing, 
t< niching, and sometimes terrible, pictures 
of Goya, there is little room to speak here. 
One is led to inquire how it is that 
foreign schools of art are so much better 
represented in this vast and splendid 
museum than the Spanish school; and 
one soon learns that the accumulation of 
these treasures of the Italian and the 
Flemish school was made during the cen- 
tury and a half when Spain was mistress of 
Italy and Flanders; when she had the 
treasures from the two Americas floating 
in steady streams into her coffers, and 
when the kings of Spain were the best 
patrons of men like Titian and Rubens. 
Velasquez was twice sent into Italy \>y 
Philip IV., with orders to buy the best 
pictures he could find without any refer- 
ence to economy in price. The Spanish 
royalty, too, took advantage of the 
auction sah> of the gallery of King 
Charles I., of England, in 1648; and. 
furthermore, it was the fashion for all 
the Spanish grandees, at least once 
during the reign of a sovereign, to 
present to him some artistic gift, usually 



a fine painting. In gems and jewels 
the Prado Museum is very rich, perhaps 
richer than any of the great museums 
in l'aris and London. 

lint in public buildings Madrid is 
almost as poor as American cities which 
only date from the beginning of this 
century. The Royal Palace is medi- 
ocre in appearance. The Opera-house 
is plain and uuimposing. The Palace of 
the Cortes, where the legislative bodies 
assemble ; the Archaeological Museum, 
and the Palace of St. Ferdinand, are not 
especially striking, although the facade 
of the Palace of the Cortes is decorated 
with two noble lions in bronze, the work 
of the sculptor Ponzano, and moulded 
out of the bronze camions taken iu the 
old campaign iu Morocco. In the 
Royal Palace is one of the most ample 
collections of tapestries in the world, and 
this is reckoned among oue of the chief 
riches of the domain of the Spanish 
down. It is said that there are more 
than eight hundred of these tapestries, 
most of them extremely interesting from 
an historical as well as an artistic point 
of view. Among the most noted of the 
compositions is the Conquest of Tunis, 
by Charles V. This merits a few words 
of description. The original designs 
were the work of Jehan Cornelius Ver- 
may, known in Flanders under the name 
of Jan Met de Baar ; in Spain he was 
sometimes called Barba Longa, the ori- 
gin of which name is easily traced. He 
came into Spain from Flanders in 1534, 
called thither by Charles V., who took 
him along to Tunis, that he might per- 
petuate, in tapestry, the presumable 
glories of the expedition. Charles came 
home successful from his campaign; and 
in 1546 Vermay had finished his compo- 
sitions illustrative of the different battles 
and victories. Yet it was not until 1554 
that the desigus had been reproduced in 



EUROPE IN STOini AND CALM. 



113 



tapestry. Six years and a half the webs 
were on the looms. The artist, it is 
furious t<> note, who made the designs, 
was paid but 1,800 florins, while the 
master-worker in tapestry received 
14.."i7(i florins, besides which he was 
paid 8,500 florins for gold thread, 6,600 
livres for silks, which had been dyed in 
Granada in sixty different dyes. Another 
tapestry illustrates the Acts of the 
Apostles. It is not only in the royal 
palaces that tapestries of value are to be 
found. Hundreds of impoverished Span- 
ish families still possess, stowed away in 
garrets, or hung, floating in some windy 
corridor of their decaying mansions, 
tapestries, which, if their pride would 
allow them to sell them, would keep them 
comfortably provided with money for 
many a year. A rich amateur, American 
or English, occasionally makes an ex- 
cursion into the peninsula, and ransacks 
these Madrid garrets, generally with 
marked profit and success. 

On my first visit to Spain I did not 
see ancient and romantic Toledo, a 
strange, quaint city, which lingers like 
a protest against the present, on its 
bluffs beside the foaming Tagus. But I 
hastened to repair my error on the oc- 
casion of my second visit, and accord- 
ingly set forth in the evening train on 
the two hours' journey between Madrid 
and the old fortress town. Spanish 
suburban railways are as capriciously 
managed as are the main lines. One is 
never certain that he will arrive at his 
destination at the hour indicated by tin 1 
time-tables ; in fact, he is never sure 
that lie will arrive at all. I fell asleep 
on the way to Toledo, and. suddenly 
being awakened by a cold wind striking 
on my face, found that we had come to 
a dead halt in a melancholy plain, and 
that one of the doors of the carriage 
was open. In a corner near me sat a 



mysterious person, entirely enveloped in 
his cloak, so that had I made the most 
persistent effort to see his face I could 
not have done so. The Spanish cloak has 
a vast amount of character in it. When 
hanging loosely from the shoulders it 
conveys the impression that its owner is 
free from guile ; but when wound about 
him, and half concealing his face, it im- 
parts to the most innocent the air of an 
assassin, or, at least, a fugitive from 
justice. When it quite swallows up the 
man in its voluminous folds it has 
something ghostly and enchante 1 about 
it, which quite controls the attention. I 
could not refrain from looking again and 
again at my mysterious fellow-passenger 
in the comer. I expected to see a noble 
cavalier, with a tremendous frown, come 
forth; but at the end of the journey, 
when the man condescended to uncloak, 
lie turned out to lie nothing but a rather 
ordinary commercial traveller in a shabby 

tweed suit. 

Judging by the lights gleaming on an 
acclivity beyond the plain that we were 
near the end of our railway ride, I rescued 
my fellow-passenger from the mass of 
rugs, blankets, overcoats, valises, and 

guide-l ks, into which he had fallen in 

the unconsciousness of sleep, and we set 
our gaze forward, as many a traveller did 
when exploring his way across those 
dreary plains at nightfall centuries ago. 
when roads were unsafe, and when men- 
at-arms went in twos and threes for 
mutual aid and protection. The superb 
moonlight lent a poetical glamor to the 
most common and vulgar objects on this 
December evening in the south. The 
pools in some of the marshes which we 
passed were like flakes of molten silver. 
Shadows in the long grass rose up and 
disappeared with strange rapidity. A 
cottage or a hovel, with a well-sweep be- 
fore it. a fortified grange, or a grove be- 



114 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



side a rippling stream, looked eminently 
picturesque. In one place we caught a 
glimpse of a belated shepherd, hurrying 
his bleating flock to shelter; in another 
we saw a tew rude men seated on the 
ground around a blazing lire. Few 
houses which we passed had any lights 
at the windows; indeed, many of them 
had no windows worthy of the name. 
The interior of a Spanish dwelling of the 
ordinary class has made small progress 
in embellishment and comfort since the 
lime when Cervantes wrote. We felt that 
we should have preferred to arrive in a 
diligence, or on horseback, rather than in 
the extremely prosaic railway-car. Pres- 
ently wo rolled into a small station, and 
there was a cry of ' L Toledo." Then 
every one made a simultaneous rush for 
the. omnibus. 

In this gloomy, although roomy, convey- 
ance we obtained some ideas as to the 
dis comforts which weshouldhave suite red 
in a diligence, and repented of our late 
desire for it. We were packed in as 
tightly as nails in a board, and while we 
were suffocating, fat Spaniards dropped 
their valises upon our toes, and heaped 
their parcels upon our laps, while they 
proceeded with great gravity to light 
their cigarettes. The roof of the crazy 
conveyance was heaped with luggage ; 
we could hear the driver indulge in a 
hundred untranslatable imprecations ; 
lien Hi' mules jumped, and away we 
went into the seemingly open country. 
We crossed an ancient bridge, beneath 
which a river was roaring. 

Presently we began to climb a hill, 
and then the brilliant moonlight showed 
us an antique parapet guarding the 
brinks of precipitous cliffs, around 
which we wound our upward way, the 
tower surrounded with wall; far above 
us, and gat'':; proudly uplifting their 
venerable hcado against time. All that 



we had dreamed of fascinating as be- 
longing to the approaches to Toledo 
was here more than fulfilled. Far 
below us, on the uneven plain, a few 
lights danced and flickered like will-of- 
the-wisps, as perhaps they were. Not 
a sound came from the city; I could 
have fancied it spellbound by a magi- 
cian. 

Now we crossed a tiny square, sur- 
rounded by tall, narrow, many-balconied 
buildings; and now our omnibus clat- 
tered through streets so narrow that 
the sleek sides of the mules seemed to 
graze the sides of the houses on either 
hand. But the Spanish Jehu landed us 
safely at last in front of a hostelry, 
which, humble enough of exterior, proved 
capacious and comfortable within. It 
was a veritable fonda : with huge wooden 
shutters to the windows, and with bra- 
zeros to warm Hie apartments; with a 
profusion of dark passages and mys- 
terious retreats, and sunny house-tops, 
where the guests made their rendezvous 
in the morning; ami with a dining-room, 
the walls of which were lined with pict- 
ures illustrative of the chivalrous career 
of the Knight of La Manclia, as well as 
with daggers and Toledo blades innu- 
merable. 

It was in this chamber, suggestive of 
duels and sudden deaths, and with ra- 
piers hanging almost literally over our 
heads, that we tool; our frugal midnight 
supper ; and while we ate fresh eggs and 
lean cutlets, fried in oil, and drank 
thimblcfuls of musty wine, we heard 
the voice of the sereno, not unmusically 
proclaiming the fact that it was twelve 
o'clock and serene. Toledo seemed 
more than serene. It seemed more and 
more to us as if the old town were in 
an enchanted sleep. 

We dressed next morning, uhivcring 
in the cool air ; for it was December, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



115 



and December has its asperities in 
Spain as well as in more northward 
climates. We opened the windows, 
hoping to get warm. This sounds odd, 
but it is the literal truth : go out of the 
house into the open air if you wish to 
be warm in Spain. The sun is the life, 
the heat, the universal rejoicer. When 
he goes dowu to rest at night every- 
thing seems to take on a sinister and 
melancholy aspect for an hour or two 
as if in sullen dejection because of the 
departure of the monarch of day. 
When a Spaniard passes from the shade 
to the sunlight his face brightens in- 
voluntarily, even though he may have 
his nose enveloped in his gloomy cloak. 
So we opened the windows, and looked 
out over the plain which Toledo so 
proudly dominates ; and here, before 
we went down to visit the town, we 
read the pretty legend about the origin 
of the Moorish victories over the Goths. 
Toledo, as all the world knows, passed 
with the rest of Spain in the fifth century 
from the hands of the Romans into 
those of the Goths ; and in Toledo the 
Gothic kings held their Court in the 
sixth century. Two hundred years 
after that, Rodriguez, the last of the 
Gothic kings, was conquered on the 
banks of the Guadalete by the Moors, 
swarming in from Africa. 

The legend tells of the mysterious 
grotto of Hercules, a subterranean laby- 
rinth, which is said to extend for more 
than three leagues outside the walls of 
Toledo. The entrance to this labyrinth, 
says the story, was closed by an iron 
gate, studded with massive bolts and 
nails, and was on the highest site in the 
town, at the place now occupied by a 
shabby Catholic church. The entrance, 
it ia said, was walled up, by order of 
Cardinal Silicco, in 154G. Here stood, 
in the ancient days, the palace founded 



by Tubal, and restored and enlarged by 
Hercules, who was a magician before the 
Greeks made a god of him, and who here 
built the enchanted tower containing 
many talismans and menacing in6crip- 
t \i his. Among these latter was one which 
read : ''A ferocious and barbaric nation 
will invade Spain whenever any one shall 
enter into this magic circle." Every 
Gothic king, trembling with fear lest this 
terrible and mysterious prophecy might 
be realized, felt it his dutytoaddnew bolts 
and locks to the mysterious door- way lead- 
ing into the grotto. But Rodriguez, not 
having the fear of magic before his eyes, 
and hopingto find important treasure con- 
cealed in the labyrinth, one day banished 
his courtiers aud his guard, and went 
along to the old iron door, on which for 
centuries had stood respected the inscrip- 
tion in Greek letters: "The king who 
shall open this door and discover the mar- 
vels beyond it will see much good and evil." 
Rodriguez, with sudden resolution, or- 
dered the bolts to be torn away, and went 
into the grotto. He soon arrived in a 
vast chamber, with walls of hewn stone, 
in the middle of which stood a bronze 
statue of terrible aspect. It held in its 
hand weapons with which it struck upon 
the floor. But Bodriguez went straight 
up to the statue and asked permission to 
go farther on. The bronze warrior then 
ceased to strike upon the floor, and Bod- 
riguez, pushiug on, soon found a coffer, 
on the cover of which was written : " He 
who opens me will sec marvels." It was 
too late to hesitate now, so he opened 
the box, but was annoyed to find in it 
nothing except a canvas which lie un- 
rolled. Upon it were figured troops of 
strange men, their heads girt with tur- 
1 mils, and with lances and bucklers in their 
hands ; and underneath them ran the 
inscription : " He who shall have opened 
this box will have ruined Spain, and will 



116 



EUROPE IN STORM AXf> CALM. 



be conquered by a nation like those 
painted on this canvas." 

King Rodriguez went out of the grotto 
filled with sadness and presentiment of 
trouble. That night a terrible tempest 
broke over Toledo, and the Tower of 
Hercules was destroyed. It was not 
long after these events that the Arabs 
began to pour into Spain, where they were 
destined to remain tor many centuries. 
Toledo was at fust governed in the name 
of the Caliphs of tile Orient by chiefs or 
by officers, who soon, however, declared 
their independence. The Moorish kin^s 
of Toledo kept their sovereignty there 
until 1085, when Alfonso VI., King of 
Castile, drove them out, after a siege 
which had lasted many years. Then 
Toledo became the capital of the kings 
of Castile, and remained so until the 
middle of the sixteenth century, when 
Philip II. took the Court to Madrid. 

We were so engrossed in our books 
that for some time we did not notice the 
hubbub in the street below ; but presently 
we looked down, where two or three 
straggling rays of sunshine had found 
their way to the very flag-stones, ami 
lighted up as picturesque a group of 
vagabonds as ever sprouted on tin- soil 
of Spain. " Are all the beggars in the 
province aware of our arrival?" said my 
companion. It. really seemed as it they 
were, and were overjoyed to see us. for 
they set up a yell of delight when our 
attention rested upon them, and all, ex- 
cept one or two lame ones, began dancing 
about, as if possessed with the devil. 
Poor souls ! they were certainly possessed 
of little else, for there were scarcely 
rags among the lot decently to cover the 
nakedness of one-half their number; and 
yet these rascals were all licensed to bee;. 
Each one wore round his or her neck 
a string, from which depended a brass 
badge, bearing the words, " Pobri <U 



Toledo;" and I warrant you that each 
one is registered in some huge black 
book, anil has to give some small per- 
centage of his receipts to a grasping 
official. Men or women must be of very 
little account in Spain to escape govern- 
mental cupidity. A good part of the 
frightful hubbub which we now heard 
was due to the fancy of some other trav- 
ellers, who from the balcony next ours 
were tossing coppers to the beggars, and 
watching the struggles of tin 1 wretches to 
get them from each other. An evil-eyed 
old man. in a soiled hat, a tattered 
blanket, a patriarchal beard, and a pair 
of red soldier trousers, had incurred the 
animosity of all the other beggars by his 
agility ; and the travellers were now a trifle 
appalled to see that their generosity 
might possibly be the cause of a fray. 
In fact, a woman and two overgrown 
boys, who had succeeded in picking up 
none of the pence, were threatening the 
old man with instant dissolution unless 
he agreed t<> divide. He defended his 
booty as he could, and already windows 
were opened on the other side of the 
street, and ladies appeared, making ap- 
pealing gestures to the travellers not to 
encourage this cupidity any farther. 
Oaths, entreaties, words neither fit for 
ears polite norimpolite, flew from beggar 
to beggar,with great rapidity, and aston- 
ished us. The red-legged sinner, disdain- 
ing the danger in which he stood, took 
off his hat, and solicited or begged our 
patronage anew, with a whining " Par 
Dios, Senores! " 

Whether or not it would have ended 
in blood I do not know, for it was luckily 
interrupted by the music of a fine mili- 
tary band and by sharp words of com- 
mand from officers. Before the beggars 
had had time to get well ranged on the 
sunshiny side of the street, with their 
backs against the walls, one of the fin- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 



117 



est-looking regiments I had ever seen 
marched past. I doubt if any country 
could have produced a finer collection of 
shapely and intelligent young men than 
that embodied in this regiment. There 
were traces of refinement and culture in 
every face, and we could not help think- 
ing that it was a sad waste to concentrate 
all this young talent upon such a branch 



Toledo we found two or three of these 
cadets, promenading or standing beneath 
balconies, conversing with ladies who 
were as invisible to them as to us. 
After seeing a few interviews of this 
fashion one can understand the strange 
surprises of which old Spanish comedies 
are full. One needs to he extremely 
careful when doing his Sunday courting, 




ALCAZAR AND WALLS OF TOLEDO. 

of the public service as the army, when 
good men arc needed in so many other 
professions in Spain. These youths 
were the pupils of the great military 
school of Toledo, whence six hundred 
cadets are sent forth at frequent periods. 
Their college was formerly the Hospital 
of the Holy Cross, and is one of the 
most interesting monuments of the town. 
Wherever we went during our stay in 



to make sure that 
it is his love, and not her 
mother, or her maiden 
aunt, whom he is talking 
up to. 

When the regiment 
had passed we closed our windows 
to discourage the beggars, and pres- 
ently sallied forth to view the town, 
beginning, as wise travellers always 
do, with a purposeless stroll hither 
and yon. In the course of this per- 
ambulation we discovered that Toledo 
is wonderfully clean for a Spanish town ; 
that order and decency seem every- 
where to prevail, and that one might 
pass a comfortable existence there if he 
were a good son of the Church, and 
passionately devoted to its history, an- 
tiquities, observances, and splendors; 
for Toledo is nought but an ancient 



118 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



fortress, filled with churches and convents 
and with the ruins of convents and 
churches. The railway and the govern- 
ment manufactory of arms, the only two 
things distinctly modern, are a long way 
outside tile town limits. On the high 
hills, where old Toledo sits enthroned, 
cradled with walls which have defied the 
centuries, no spindles hum. no looms 
clash. You wonder in vain on what the 
population lives; you cannot find out. 
But it certainly does live, ami live well ; 
for as the hour of the mid-day meal 
approaches you see hundreds of pretty 
olive-colored servant-girls, hurrying to 
their employers' homes, with market- 
baskets piled high with appetizing dis- 
play of vegetables, fruits, and meat. 
and with sundry fat bottles protruding 
from among the other treasures. There 
are eighteen thousand or twenty thou- 
sand people in Toledo, and only a small 
percentage of the number subsists by 
begging. The others live. Ah ! how- 
do they live? 

They evidently cared little for our 
opinion of them. They looked down 
from their windows at us with a cer- 
tain delicate scorn in their glances as if 
thinking, " Here are more barbarians 
come to view the proofs of our former 
grandeur." We finished our ramble at 
the Alcazar, a beautiful edifice, which 
stands upon the site of an old Gothic 
fortress. If was almost entirely built 
by Charles Y. and by Philip II. It was 
burned in 1710 by the armies, German, 
English, Dutch, and Turk, during the 
war of the Succession. Charles III. had 
the magnificent staircase and many other 
parts of the structure restored in 177:2 ; 
but it was again burned in 1812, and 
now tin 1 Spaniards have courageously 
rebuilt it anew. The patio, or interior 
court, with its majestic columns and the 
staircase of honor, won our respect and 



reverence. From the Alcazar we went 
down to the large irregular square, sur- 
rounded by uneven arcades, where the 
populace collects in crowds when the 
sun is hot; and on this day it was hot 
indeed. People sat motionless on the 
great stone benches, absorbing, as I have 
seen them do in Florida, the divine 
beauty of the air and the sun. Mule- 
teers from the country round about had 
east themselves on the ground near their 
beast;;, and were lazily smoking and 
dreaming. None of these men, of what- 
ever class, felt worried about, the uses or 
abuses of life, the shadow of the grave, 
or any such nonsense ; and I felt, sure 
that had they possessed intelligence 
enough to comprehend the purport of 
Mr. Mallock's book. " Is Life worth 
Living?" they would have waved it 
gently aside as an intellectual atrocity, 
not worth their serious attention. Some- 
thing of the calm and dignity of the Moor- 
ish gateways and the massive cathedral 
walls seems to have crept into the de- 
meanor and the thought of these good 
people of Toledo. 

The shopkeepers do not seem much 
in earnest. There were no rich shops, 
filled with articles of luxury for sale, 
such as one would be sure to find in a 
town of twenty thousand inhabitants in 
America. People have finished their 
buying of furniture, pictures, and plate, 
and so great bazaars, tilled with such 
things, are lacking. The chemist and 
the tailor had a melancholy look. They 
did not seem to be over-confident of a 
paying patronage; but saddle and har- 
ness, horse-gear and mule-gear, stirrups 
and belts, daggers and pistols, guns and 
knives, were evidently in constant de- 
mand. Spain is still the country of the 
wandering horseman, armed to the teeth, 
and ready for adventures on hill or in 
valley. From this sun-blessed square, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



119 



with its dozing crowd, we went down to 
the smaller place in front of the mighty 
cathedral. Here, again, we found dozens 
of . persons basking in the sun, a few 
children gambolling in a slow, lazy fash- 
ion, not even deigning to get out of 
our way, but allowing us to walk over 
them. 

This great church, which men labored 
at for two hundred and fifty years 
before its exterior was complete, and 
which is a pearl of Gothic architecture, 
threw a frowning shadow across our 
path. It seemed warning us to set aside 
the light and trifling spirit of the super- 
cilious traveller, in which we had been 
viewing and commenting upon things all 
that morning, and to approach its won- 
ders in reverential attitude. I sat down 
on a bench in front of the church and 
studied the rich portals until quite lost 
to everything else. The men who wrote 
in this stone book, as Victor Hugo would 
say, of hell, of pardon, and of the judg- 
ment, were blessed with elevated imagi- 
nation. It is not a little suggestive of 
the spirit of the Catholic church, that 
the page, or the portal, devoted to par- 
don is the most elaborately rich. This 
is exquisitely beautiful, worth journey- 
ing hundreds of miles by Spanish railway 
to sec. The others are sometimes rude in 
detail, hut powerful in ensemble. From 
the right of this monstrous facade, the 
stones in which seem to breathe forth 
life, springs the graceful church-tower, 
ninety yards high, and holding in its 
belfry a chime, one bell of which weighs 
forty thousand pounds. On the left is 
the renowned Mozarabic chapel, sur- 
mounted by a handsome octagonal cu- 
pola. This fronts the west, and the 
glories of the setting sun linger on it 
winter and summer evenings before they 
settle down to turn the ruddy waters of 
the Tagus for a. moment into a Hood of 



molten gold. There are no less than 
twenty -three chapels, which are so many 
little churches, all grouped around the 
greater cathedral, and they were spe- 
cially constructed, at widely divided 
epochs, as places of burial for celebrated 
warriors and churchmen. It was in GG7, 
if we may believe the pious tradition, 
that tlie Virgin appeared to St. llde- 
fonso, Bishop of Toledo ; hut this church 
had been founded a century before by 
a Gothic king converted to Catholicism. 
After the invasion of the Moors the 
cathedral, of course, became a mosque, 
and the Moors kept it a:; their place of 
worship even after the triumphal entry of 
Alfonso VI. , until one night the Chris- 
tians arose, and, violating their prom- 
ise, took back the old cathedral, and 
consecrated it anew to their own worship. 
The foundations of the present cathedral 
were laid in 1227, and the edifice was fin- 
ished in 1493. When we had concluded 
our study of this facade we went round to 
the southern one, to the Door of the 
Lions, as it is called. We tried in vain 
to examine the beautiful small statues 
with which the portal was studded. 
The effort made our heads ache and 
brought black spots before our eyes. 
Northward arose the high and forbidding 
walls of the cloister and dozens of an- 
cient houses, with carven fronts and 
windows protected with iron railings, 
also -arved with hundreds of quaint de- 
vices. Behind the church, in a gloomy 
building, now a posada, once sat the 
Holy Inquisition, and from the vaults 
sometimes were heard, in the old days, 
the shrieks and groans of tortured pris- 
oners. 

We went into the cathedral and found 
preaching in progress. After a long 
walk through the shades we came to 
the central structure, found in all 
Spanish churches, and which in this im- 



120 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



pressive cathedral is of most fabulous 
magnificence. Our eyes wandered from 
alabaster figures of saints and martyrs 
down to the precious and richly carved 
nulls of wood on which they rested, and 
then up lo the frowning and monstrous 
columns of marble. One could but 
faintly describe this coro, for the amount 
of detail fatigues the sense of observa- 
tion. In a high pulpit, which seemed to 
spring as lightly as the blossom of a 
honeysuckle from among the gigantic 
pillars, was a priest, lecturing a large 
procession of red-cloaked seminarists, 
who sat submissively below him. The 
ox-like beatitude of these youths' faces 
impressed me. 1 wondered if tiny had 
really got the vocation, or if their pas- 
sions were still asleep. We thought 
that, considering the absolute humility of 
his audience, the priest was rather em- 
phatic and declamatory. In the live 
enormous naves of the church and in all 
the chapels ran an odor of incense, soft, 
sweet, and penetrating. It seemed to 
enter our very souls. My companion 
rebelled against it. He said he felt as 
if there were a, kind of moral taint, a 
species of spiritual subjection in it, and 
he longed to get into the open air. 

But even he was half persuaded 
to bow in adoration before a. deli- 
cate and perfect marble croup, repre- 
senting the Virgin and the Child, on 
the spot where the Virgin is supposed 
to have appeared to St. Ildefonso when 
he brought down the holy chasuble. He 
stood and watched the faithful as they 
came one by one to touch the stone on 
which the divine mother was said to 



have set her feet, and his face took on a 
kind of awe as he saw the fervor and 
sincerity of these simple ones, who 
believe that the stone has certain power- 
ful virtues. All the beautiful French and 
English cathedrals sink into insignifi- 
cance beside this of Toledo. Spaniards 
themselves think that the exterior archi- 
tecture of 1!iis church is inferior to that 
of the Cathedral of Burgos; but the 
superb mass of seemingly inexhaustible 
riches collected within the wal'.s over- 
whelms the spectator. Here the past is 
crystallized. This is at once cemetery 
and temple of worship, volume of his- 
tory, and museum of antiquities. Poetry 
and romance are in every corner. Knights 
and ladies, famous long ago, seem to 
sleep lightly on their sculptured tombs 
and to be ready to arise at a signal. The 
red hat of a cardinal hangs above a mar- 
ble sarcophagus. How long has it been 
thin'? Longer than the United States 
has been a nation. 

And when the priest had finished his 
sermon, and the red-cloaked seminarists 
had gone forth, and the women who 
had been squatting on the stone pave- 
ment had arisen and departed, tremulous 
organ-music stole through the air, and 
came to us like a benediction. From 
the hidden choir rose the pure voices of 
boy choristers, singing praises over and 
over again, while the round voices of 
monks chimed the responses. We 
were about to leave the cathedral, but 
we could not. The magic of the music 
was all-powerful. We sat down in a 
corner and listened. 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



121 



CHAPTER TWELVE. 

Dead Celebrities. — Don Alvaro tie Luna and his Famous Chapel in Toledo. — The Aneient Gates. — The 
Cloister of San Juan de Los Reyes. — Cordova. — The Mezquita. — A Relic of the Moors. — The 
Plain of Seville. — The Giralda. — The Cathedral.— The Gardens of the Alcazar.— The Duke ol 
Montpensicr. 



OPAIN has more dead than living 
^~J celebrities within her limits, and 
among them none is more worthy of a 
note of respectful admiration than the 
old constable Don Alvaro De Luna, 
whose tomb is in this ancient Cathedral 
of Toledo, in the Santiago Chapel, one 
of the best specimens of the highest 
period of florid Gothic art. In this ex- 
quisite chapel reposes on a white marble 
tomb the body of the great constable, 
who had such a romantic history, and 
who finished his career upon the scaffold 
in 1453. The Spaniards say that the 
constable, who was very pious, had 
arranged, years before any thought of 
death had touched his spirit, that his 
mausoleum should have a statue which 
should kneel dowu during mass, and 
might rise up again at the end of the 
holy office. This strange order was 
carried into effect, and the statue was, 
so the legend runs, placed in the cathe- 
dral ; but the great Isabel ordered it to 
be removed because of the irreverent 
nature of the curiosity which it provoked 
among the faithful. 

Don Alvaro first makes his appearance 
in history as a page in the service of the 
young King John II., in 1408, while the 
king was still under the tutelage of the 
queen mother. The two young people 
were united in the closest bonds of 
friendship, but the courtiers became 
jealous of the influence which the page 
had upon the king, and separated the 



two children; whereupon the young 
monarch fell into such a profound mel- 
ancholy that his beloved Don Alvaro 
was summoned back to court at once. 
Thenceforward the path of the ambi- 
tious page was strewn with proofs of 
royal favor, and it was not many years 
before he attained the highest office in 
the kingdom, — that of Constable of 
Castile. 

In 1431 he was victorious in the famous 
battle in which the Moors were pursued 
even to the walls of Granada. The vic- 
tory of Olmedo delivered King John II. 
from the ambitious intrigues of his 
cousin ; and for this feat of arms, which 
was, perhaps, the proudest in Don 
Alvaro's career, he received every honor 
and courtesy which his royal master could 
bestow upon him. But thereafter his 
fortunes declined. John II. became 
jealous of him, and was, so the legend 
says, anxious to seize upon the immense 
riches which the constable had accumu- 
late.!. 

So he ruthlessly exiled his favorite, 
and then Don Alvaro, for the first time 
in his life, committed a crime. He be- 
lieved that he had been supplanted in the 
favor of the king by a certain Alonzo 
Perez, who had been his own secretary. 
He managed to get this ungrateful servi- 
tor a fatal fall from the to]) of his house 
in Burgos, having had the balustrade 
sawn away, and pitched after the victim, 
in order to make the public believe that 



122 



EUROPE I\ STORM AND CALM. 



the murder was an accident. Dim Alvaro 
w:is arrested anil handed over to the 
executioner. His head was exposed in 
the market-place of Valladolid for nine 
days, :iml he who had been fur thirty 
years the most powerful man in Spain 
was buried by public charity. l>ut in 
process of time Ins evil deeds were for- 
gotten, :iinl liis glorious ones seemed to 
entitle him to the bright place which he 
occupies to-day in the noblest cathedral 
in northern Spain. 

Another chapel of marked interest is 
that nf "Tin.' new Kings," which was 
built under Charles V., and in which arc 
many tombs of kings and queens of the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. ( me 
begins to understand the reverent awe 
with which the citizens of Toledo speak 
of the great cathedra] when he lias 
wandered among those royal tombs, and 
lias learned that within those noble walls 
is a great epitome of Spanish history. 

From the church we went out for a 
walk around the old walls of Toledo, and 
visited in turn the beautiful Gate of the 
Sun ( Puerta del Sol), in which the widely 
varying styles of the Moresque, the 
Gothic, and the Renaissance epochs are 
so strangely united; and that other 
ancient gateway, the Arco del Crista de 
la Luz, under which Alfonso VI. made 
his triumphal entry into the Toledo which 
he had won by his sword. We looked 

down upon the Tagus from the Bridge of 
Alcantara, which springs airily across a 
gigantic chasm, its single arch, in light- 
ness and beauty, surpassing anything of 
the kind we had ever seen in northern 
lands. But of all the treasures of old 
Toledo none so won our fancy, not even 
the cathedral so appealed to our poetic 
sense, as did the Church of San Juan de 
los Reyes, which stands high above the 
Bridge of St. Martin, proudly overlook- 
ing the Tagus. No written description 



can more than faintly reproduce the 
beauties of this Gothic monument, once 
a vast church and cloister, which must 
have been a very haven of delight for 
the weary churchmen and warriors who 
reached it alter toiling across the bleak 
plains and through the dangerous moun- 
tain passes. It was built in 1476, by 
Ferdinand and Isabella, as a votive 
offering after the famous victory of Toro, 
gained over their neighbor, the King of 
Portugal, who was always covetous, and 
who supported the intriguing pretender 
to the crown of Castile. The portal of 
the church, a century younger than the 
church itself, is supremely beautiful; 
but the chief gem of the monastery 
was its cloister, which is the most mirac- 
ulous specimen of carving in stone that 
I have ever seen. Its beautiful arches 
are to-day half-ruined; the garlands of 
leaves, of (lowers, of birds, of chimeras, 
and of dragons, are degraded, and many 
of them have been taken down to be re- 
produced by the restorer's chisel. The 
finely carved colonnades, the little 
groups of pillars, within which lurk the 
statues of some shy saints, who look 
down from their refuge as if half afraid 
of the invading hand of modernism ; the 
rich pedestals, and the standards and 
dais, worked through and through by the 
cunning artisans, until they arc almost 
like lace ; the quaint and extravagant 
fancies of the mediaeval stone-cutters, — 
all this one despairs of rendering in 
weak prose. Outside the cloister, and 
above the door of the convent, through 
which, to-day, one enters the provincial 
museum, is a great cross in Gothic style, 
surmounted by a pelican. On the right 
and on the left arc statues of St. John 
and the Virgin Mary, in the face of 
which, so say the guides, one sees the 
veritable lineaments of the Catholic 
monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. All 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



123 



around the outside of the church hang 
uncomfortable masses of iron chains and 
fetters. These are the votive offerings 
of the Christian captives, who were given 
hack to liberty at the surrender of 
Granada. 

When we left Toledo we felt as if 
we had been in an en- 
chanted city for one 
hundred years, and had 
suddenly been thrown 
back into the cold light 
of the natural world. 
We went away, our eyes 
still dazzled with the 
treasures which we had 
seen in the Sacristy of 
the Cathedral, on the 
morning before our de- 
parture. The superb 
custodia, which was made 
for the church in 1524, 
all of gilded silver, in the 
Gothic style, was deco- 
rated with more than two 
hundred and sixty stat- 
uettes, and literally cov- 
ered with diamonds, with 
emeralds, and with other 
precious stones. Its cen- 
tral part, in massive 
gold, said the pious clerk 
who showed it to us, was 
made with the first ore 
brought back from Amer- 
ica by Christopher Co- 
lumbus. There, too, we 
saw the processional cross in gilded silver, 
made by a noted craftsman of Toledo in 
the sixteenth century ; and the standard 
which was planted by the valiant Car- 
dinal Mendoza and his men on the for- 
tress of the Alhambra in Granada in 
1492. The clerk showed us a Bible 
of the twelfth century, written upon 
golden leaves, each leaf beautifully en- 



circled with emeralds and with painted 
miniatures ; and we could not help cov- 
eting the reliquaries, of which this good 
man showed us at least fivescore. 

We went on from cathedral to cathe- 
dral until we were almost persuaded 
that all Spain was but tributary to the 




THE PUERTA DEL SOL. 

Catholic shrines, and that the revolu- 
tionary movements which we had seen 
in favor of modern progress and liberty 
were but the " baseless fabric of a vi- 
sion." From Toledo we went down, past 
Aranjuez, to the Alcazar de San Juan, 
a wretched and ancient town, chiefly 
memorable in the diaries of travellers 
because of the discomforts which they 



124 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

have teen obliged to endure at its huge sculptor, all in excellent degree; the 

and comfortless railway station. This home of the great captain of the fifteenth 

Alcazar was mice the capita! of the century, Fernandez de Cordova, — isnow 

commanderies of the Knights of St. a melancholy spectacle. Commerce seems 

John. to take wings to itself and fly away from 

We continued our journey into Anda- places which il had once blessed with its 

lusia, across the barren and monoto- beneficial presence. Under the Romans, 

nous plains of La Maucha, through the under the Moms, even under the Castil- 

country which Cervantes lias immortal ians. Cordova was one of the great in- 

izeil in ■■ Hem Quixote," through defiles dustrial cities of the world. Its silk 

and along the edges of precipices as factories swarmed with workmen and 

wonderful as those of northern Spain, workwomen, and the manufacture of its 

until we came to old Cordova, half de- stamped and gilded leathers employed 

serted, bul Still as picturesque as it was thousands of artisans; hut one by one 

in the time of the Caliphs, when it pos- the sources of its commercial greatness 

sessed two hundred thousand houses, fell away, and there has been no internal 

and. it' we may believe the enthusiastic policy, political or commercial, worthy 

Spaniards, eighty thousand palaces, seven the name, in Spain, since the beginning 

hundred mosques, and more than twelve of the century. So it is not wonderful 

thousand villages in its suburbs. The that Cordova shows no signs of the 

railway to Cordova passes near the site awakening so perceptible in Barcelona 

of the famous battle of Las Navas. and the other cities of the north. There 

fought on the 12th of July, 1212, when are to-day but a few wretched iiiiiiiu- 

the Moors were defeated with a loss of factories of ribbons and of gilt in the 

many thousands of men, and were town; but the jewellers are numerous, 

forced to give into the hands of the and their windows are tilled with gold 

Christians the fertile domain of Andalu- and silver work, which is massive and 

sia, where they had been so happy. honestly made, although without much 

It is stupefying to the traveller from delicacy or elegance, 

the Occident to wander through Cor- Cordova had been but little touched 

dova. From whole quarters of the city by the revolutions which succeeded each 

the inhabitants have gone away; long other with such rapidity in the peninsula 

streets are filled with houses entirely un- after 1868; but since the revival of the 

occupied, and here one may learn to un- monarchy of Alfonso XII. there has 

derstand the gradual ruin which overtook grown up, all through the fertile domain 

the cities of the East. of Andalusia, a socialistic movement, 

The ancient town of the Senecas and which perhaps had its origin in the sub- 

of Lucan ; the illustrious cradle of the terranean workings of the International 

poets of Cordova, of whom Cicero spoke in ISO'.), and the years directly preceding 

with so much enthusiasm; the city in it. The taxation of the present mon- 

whicli Moorish physicians, surgeons, and arcliy has been almost ruinous for many 

philosophers, jurisconsults, and minis- of the industries of Andalusia, and it is 

ters of state, wrote works which have remarkable with what persistence one 

been translated into half tin' languages Spanish monarchy follows i ther Span- 

of Europe; the birthplace of Cespedes, ish monarchy in neglecting to develop 

who was poet, painter, architect, and the resources of the country. Shortly 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



125 



after returning from a journey in Spain 
I took up the descriptive itinerary of 
that country, written nearly fifty years 
ago by Comte de Laborde, and in it the 
author, who was a painstaking and care- 
ful observer, laments that the whole 
country between Seville and Jerez de la 
Frontera, which is naturally one of the 
most fertile bits of land in the world, is 
left to run to waste, because the oppres- 
sive taxation, and the indisposition of 
the local authorities to aid in making 
improvements in the provinces, had dis- 
couraged the farmers. What the Comte 
de Laborde said fifty years ago is per- 
fectly true to-day. If progress is made 
in Spain, always excepting the recent 
vigorous movements in Catalonia and 
elsewhere in the north, it may be set 
down as certain that it is the work of 
the English or some other enterprising 
strangers. Andalusia, wrote our observ- 
ing friend fifty years ago. so abounds 
in wheat that it has been called the 
granary of Spain ; but to-day the poorer 
classes find it difficult to get enough to 
eat. Probably one of the reasons for 
this extreme poverty is their unwilling- 
ness to work ; but there is little induce- 
ment to labor in a country where the 
government takes the larger part of 
one's earnings so soon as one has earned 
them. 

The society of the Mano Negra, or 
the Black Hand, was formed a few 
years ago in Andalusia, its direct objects 
being the plunder of the rich and the 
assassination of the oppressors ; and the 
creation of this society was provoked 
exactly like that of the Nihilists in 
Russia, by intolerable abuses and 
tyranny, from which there seemed no 
appeal except by conspiracy and vio- 
lence. 

The jewel of Cordova is its ancient 
mosque, still called the Mezquita. To- 



day the Holy Church has baptized it as 
a cathedral ; but to the eyes of all the 
poetically inclined it will still remain the 
mosque which the splendid Caliph Al>- 
derahman built in the year 170 of the 
Ilegira, as the Arab chroniclers tell us. 
and in which have been seen so many 
splendid parades of Moorish military and 
civic grandeur. This beautiful structure 
occupies the site of the first cathedral 
that the Goths had built on the place 
where they had found traces of the 
temple of Janus, which the Romans had 
erected there. The Mezquita is even 
built out of the ruins of the two preced- 
ing structures, and nearly all the columns 
which are so striking a feature of the 
mosque are very ancient. The edifice 
is five hundred and thirty-four feet long, 
and nearly four hundred feet wide 
within. The walls are built out of 
huge stones, hewn coarsely, and uneven 
in size. The northern side is covered 
with ornaments in stucco, which are 
carved with the greatest delicacy; and 
at the principal entrance are six jasper 
columns of exquisite beauty. A massive 
square tower rises at one side of this 
strange building. Its windows are 
ornamented with white and red marble 
columns ; and at the top are little arches, 
in the form of festoons, sustained by a 
great number of diminutive columns. 

The court-yard, nearly two hundred 
feet long, with a marble fountain in its 
centre, is another curious feature in 
the mosque. This is the place where 
the faithful made their daily ablutions 
after they had left their shoes at the 
toot of the tower near the entrance. 
This superb court-yard is surrounded on 
three sides by a fine portico, supported 
by seventy-two columns. In the middle 
are planted orange and lemon trees, 
cypress, palms, and many other tropical 
and semi-tropical shrubs. Here nature 



126 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and art are married in the happiest 
manner, with that felicity and harmony 
which the Moors so well understood. 
When the troops who accompanied 
Joseph Bonaparte into Andalusia en- 
tered this dazzling court-yard for the 
first time they could not suppress shouts 
of admiration. The chapter of the 
cathedral, in its most brilliant costumes, 
came forward to meet the new monarch, 
who was destined to have such a short 
stay ; the people pressed in crowds round 
the cortige; and the great enclosure, 
with its antique, oriental stones, with its 
African palm-trees spreading above the 
verdure of the low orange shrubs, which 
mingled the perfume of their flowers 
with the incense escaping from the 
censers ; the branches, which were dec- 
orated with thousands of ribbons and 
flags of all colors ; the clash of the drums, 
and the noise of the artillery outside ; 
the superb vault of the sky, — in a word, 
the unusual beauty of animate and inan- 
imate tilings formed such an ensemble 
that the troops, who had French eyes 
for the picturesque, were ravished, and 
swore that they would never depart from 
such a beautiful place. This mosque 
has seventeen doors, covered with bronze 
plates. Within the vast structure are 
nineteen naves, each three hundred and 
fifty feet long, and more than fourteen 
feet wide, running from the south to the 
north ; and across these, from east to 
west, run nineteen smaller naves. All 
these are formed by long lines of columns, 
and the effect is as fantastic as beautiful. 
Many of the columns are of jasper, 
which closely resembles turquoise ; others 
are of the finest red, white, and reddish- 
yellow marble. Most of them have Co- 
rinthian capitals, and few are more than 
eleven feet high. There are in this 
wonderful mosque no less than one thou- 
sand and eighteen of these columns. 



Here are no vaults, but the ceilings are 
made of simple wood, without ornamen- 
tation, but beautifully joined together. 
The mosque was left in its original form 
until the beginning of the tenth century, 
at which time the zealous chapter ob- 
tained from the king, although the citi- 
zens of Cordova protested against the 
mutilation of the beautiful monument, 
permission to build in the centre of the 
structure a huge chapel, which is like a 
church within a church. But, in spite of 
its rich accumulations of marbles, of 
paintings, of tapestries, and of frescoes, 
it looks cold and out of place in this 
Moorish mosque, which seems to attract 
to it the heat and the translucent color 
of Africa. 

After a day's wandering in and about 
this mosque we felt that Cordova had no 
further charm for us. We did not stay 
to visit the great Episcopal Palace, with 
its marble staircase, the balustrades of 
which are lined with ornaments in bad 
taste, nor to inspect the seemingly innu- 
merable portraits of the bishops of Cor- 
dova, nor the remains of the palace of 
the Moorish kings, which I fancied ex- 
isted only in the imagination of the .Span- 
ish chroniclers ; nor to the Royal Palace, 
which, surrounded by its gloomy walls, 
looks like a citadel occupied by a foreign 
invader, who is compelled to protect him- 
self from tin 1 inhabitants. Indeed, this 
might be construed, perhaps, as the 
present position of the monarchy in 
Spain. At Cordova one of the old 
palaces is used as a stable for the splen- 
did Andalusian horses which are raised 
in the neighborhood; and in this stable, 
in 1792, stood six hundred almost price- 
less horses, the very perfection of their 
race. The Spanish monarchs of this 
century have not paid so much attention 
to horses as to bulls. Here and therein 
Cordova one sees the spacious enclosures 



EUROrii IN STORM AiVD CALM. 



127 



into which the wild bulla arc driven when 
they are brought up from the plains to be 
partially subjugated before they arc given 
over to the pleasures of the 
populace in the ring. r- ; ....■/;. 

From Cordova to Seville is 
a pleasant excursion through 
one of the most fertile plains 
in Spain, among the vines 
and olive trees, through gr< >ves 
of cactus and of palm. The 
railway is even hedged in by 
rows of gigantic cacti, which 
grow in the most fantastic 
form. Seville stands in the 
midst of this plain, which is 
traversed by the Guadalqui- 
vir. At first sight it is not 
imposing. The streets are nar- 
row, tortuous, badly paved. 
The eleven thousand or 
twelve thousand houses in 
the town are very solidly 
built, and any one of any 
importance has a great court- 
yard surrounded by galleries, 
supported by columns, and 
has fountains in the centre. 
The entrance to each of these 
patios, as the courts are 
called, is closed by a door of 
open iron-work, in which the 
artisans of Seville arc very 
adroit. In summer, when 
the intense heat falls upon 
this plain, the inhabitants 
of Seville live entirely in these open 
courts, over which they spread gayly 
colored awnings. They desert their 
6leeping-rooms and lie on cool couches in 
the corridors, lulled to rest by the music 
of the fountains, lint, as nothing is per- 
fect in this life, they have a compensat- 
ing torment in the omnipresent mosquito. 

The foundation of Seville is variously 
attributed to Hercules, to Bacchus, to 



the Hebrews, to the Chaldeans, and to 
the Phoenicians. What is certain about 
the old town's history is, that its inhab- 




A PATIO IN SEVILLE. 

itants have always manifested a Parisian 
discontent with their sovereigns and 
forms of government; that they have 
sustained three sieges, two of which are 
among the most remarkable in history.; 
that they revolted against the King of 
Cordova in the eleventh century, and 
set up a King of Seville for themselves ; 
were brought back under the empire of 
the sovereigns of Cordova ; raised anew 



128 



EUROPE J.Y STORM AND CALM. 



the standard of rebellion in 1111, and 
again chose a king whose descendants 
laid down the law to Cordova. When 
Ferdinand II., King of Castile and 
Leon, took possession of Cordova ami 
Jaen, in 1236, Seville threw off all au- 
thority and declared herself a Republic; 
that her people should he governed by 
the laws which they made for themselves. 
But Ferdinand II. circled Seville with 
his forces, and set siege to it in 1247, 
and after twelve months of grim resist- 
ance the town succumbed, and was 
thenceforward to he a jewel in the crown 
of Castile. 

The two chief beauties of Seville are 
the Alcazar, the ancient palace of the 
Moorish kings, which, since the fall of 
the Moors, has been restored and much 
enlarged, especially in the reign of the 
sombre and terrible Peter the Cruel; 
and the Metropolitan church, or cathe- 
dral, a noble twin to that of Toledo, 
and one of the most splendid edifices in 
Europe. The cathedral, the old tower 
of the Giralda, built by El Gebir, the 
inventor of Algebra, which is named 
after him; the archiepiscopal palace, 
and the old library in which lie the 
thousands of manuscript records con- 
cerning the discovery of the New World, 
— are all grouped together in a beauti- 
ful square bordered with orange-trees. 
We were admitted to the library, where 
we saw infinite portraits of archbishops 
of Seville, but not many of the discov- 
erers of America; and where we found 
no books of more recent date than the 
close of the last century. But why 
should the library of the church have 
books of recent issue? Seville seems 
to have fallen asleep in its sunny plain 
beside the broad, lazy river, and to 
have forgotten the glorious days when 
it was the centre of (he commerce and 
the wealth of Spain; when it was the 



point of departure and arrival for the 
huge fleets which traded to the land of 
the setting sun ; when troops of hardy 
adventurers thronged the quays of the 
Guadalquivir, anxious to embark for 
adventure in America. " Seville," says 
a melancholy Spanish writer of the pres- 
ent day, " is now a body without a soul ; 
and yet" — he adds with quaint sad- 
ness — " the vessels could go up the 
Guadalquivir to-day as readily as they 
did four hundred years ago." Here 
came the gold and silver from the colo- 
nies ; here were furled the sails of the 
galleons after they had been chased 
along the shores by piratical or inimi- 
cal fleets, which laid in wait for them 
as they came home from the rich West ; 
here were thousands of workers in 
silks, in gold and silver tissues, in flax 
and cotton stuffs; but now they arc all 
gone. In 1601 the seventeen guilds 
of the city of Seville made a report 
concerning the prosperity of the town. 
There were then a great many silk 
factories, employing thirteen thousand 
men and women. Two centuries later 
there were hardly two thousand silk 
weavers in the town. 

During two visits in Seville I found 
that the Cathedral commanded and ab- 
sorbed my attention. As in Venice the 
stranger naturally makes his way twice 
or thrice daily to the Place of St. Mark, 
so in Seville, whether or not one be 
piously inclined, he pushes aside the 
leathern curtains on the door-ways at 
the entrance of the Cathedral several 
times each day ; and at each visit to the 
interior of tin 1 great church he finds 
something new on which to feast his eyes. 
Now it is a dance of pages, in mediaeval 
costume, before the great central altar; 
now it is a procession, — and where are 
the religious processions so picturesque 
and so rich in color as in Spain? — now 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



1 2'.) 



a sermon by some buxom friar to a con- 
gregation of one or two thousand ladies, 
whoare seated on the flag-stones, humbly 
taking in the word of the 
gospel ; now, it is the fu- 
neral of some nobleman, 
with majestic singing by 
scores of monks in the 
carven stalls of the coro: 
in short, it is a perpetual 
succession of spectacles, 
each one of which has its 
peculiar charm. 

In the Sacristy are the 
famous tables given by 
Alfonso the Good to this 
historic church. They are 
of gilded silver without, 
and of gold within, and 
covered with chisellings 
encrusted with precious 
stones. There, also, is 
the great silver key, on 
the wards of which is the 
inscription, " < tod will 
open and the King will 
enter." Underneath the 
ringof this key are graven 
ships, lions, and castles. 
The custodians say that 
this was the key given by 
the Moors to King Fer- 
dinand when they gave 
up the city of Seville. 
There, too, is a majestic 
chandelier of bronze, 
which serves for the office 
of the Holy Week when 
the streets of Seville are 
transformed into a vast 
religious fair, and wheu the hotels are 
thronged with visitors from the four quar- 
ters of the world. This chandelier is filled 
with columns, caryatids, statues, and other 
ornaments in relief. In this Sacristy is the 
Tabernacle, worth fifteen thousand or 



sixteen thousand dollars of our money. 
This is carried in the procession on the 
day of the festival of the Holy Sacrament. 




BEGGARS AT THE CATHEDRAL DOOR. 



It is of incomparable richness, and is 
covered with most curious figures of 
angels and of saints. 

From the top of the Giralda Tower 
we looked down upon the great square 
in which the Inquisition used to roast its 



130 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

unhappy victims, and tried to imagine the gallant princes who took part in the 

the scene ; but it seemed to vis incredible first campaigns in Algeria. Bravery has 

that so .sunny, so peaceful, and so beau- always been one of his chief qualities, 

tiful a place should have been chosen and it Stood out in stroll"; relict' in his 

for the exercise of the race of the most fatal duel with his cousin, the- Infante 

bigoted monks the world has ever known. Don Enrique de Bourbon. The Duke 

We preferred to dismiss from our married, in 1846, the sister of Queen 

thoughts the remembrance of these nor- Isabel of Spain, a marriage which at the 

rors, recollecting that the Inquisition has time was considered a very adroit piece 

long ago had its teeth drawn, and to call of management on the part of Louis 

up, as we looked over beautiful Seville, Philippe, and caused great irritation, and 

the poetic figures of the great painters almost open rupture, between France and 

and sculptors who have made the town England. 

illustrious. The school of Seville counts The Duke has been much disturbed by 

among its glories, Zurbaran, Fernandez, revolutions. After the events of Feb- 

Velasquez, and Herrera. Murillo was. ruary, IMS. in Paris, he lied to England 

in point of fact, not a native of Seville, with his family ; thence to Holland, and 

although the Sevillans claimed him as afterwards to Seville, where he has 

one of their own. But lie has left in the finally settled in the charming palace 

town a hundred evidences of his great- just mentioned. lie was compelled to 

ncss. and none more striking than the leave Spain after the fright of Queen 

paintings in the chapel of the hospital Isabel in 1868; gave up his rank in the 

for indigent old men. In this chapel the army, his title of Infante, and his deco- 

paintings are kept reverently screened by rations which he had received from the 

curtains, which the attendant nuns will Queen; but, under the provisional gOV- 

draw away for the stranger who bestows eminent, he got permission to return to 

charity upon the hospital. Seville, and then set up his candidature 

The gardens of the Alcazar seemed for the empty throne. About that time, 

more like the sudden embodiment of a however, his chances were ruined by the 

poet's dream than like the result of the above-mentioned duel, which must cause 

carefully planned luxury of Moorish and him many a twinge of c science, al- 

Spanish sovereigns. They are still though his attitude, as men of the world 

maintained in their pristine beauty, and consider such things, was strictly correct, 

are filled with fountains, groves of orange There had long been a quarrel between 

and lemon trees, and with a profusion of the Duke and his cousin, which was 

delicate tropical plants and flowers. brought to a sanguinary conclusion by 

Not far from these gardens of the Don Enrique's letter, talking about the 

Alcazar is a palace in which resides, for " suborned villains " who were ready to 

some portion of each year, the Duke de proclaim Montpensier King of Spain. 

Montpensier, otherwise known as An- The Duke immediately challenged his 

toine Marie Philippe, Louis d'Orleans. cousin, and met him on the 12th of 

The Duke ile Montpensier is a well-known March. 1870. on the artillery ground 

figure in half-a-do/.en European capitals, about three miles from Madrid. Three 

as he is almost as inveterate a traveller shots were exchanged, the I )uke. the third 

as Daniel Pratt. He is the fifth sou of time, taking deadly aim and shooting his 

King Louis Philippe, and was among cousin through the head. For this little 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



131 



incident in his career he was tried by 
court-martial, sentenced to one month's 
banishment from the capital, and to pay 
an indemnity to the family of his slain 
cousin. His political ambitions are per- 
haps over, for he is now an old man. 
although still erect and strong, and fond 
of constant bustle and excitement. In 
Paris he makes his head-quarters at the 
H6tel de Londres, which has long been 



a favorite resort for the Orleans family, 
and from his balcony in the hotel he 
looked down upon the funeral of Gambetta 
not long ago. It is sometimes the fash- 
ion to say that the Duke helps his 
younger cousins to conspire, but nothing 
has transpired to prove this. He is, and 
will probably remain, as the Comte de 
Chambord was at the time of his death, 
a monarchical candidate in partibus. 



132 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHARTER THIRTEEN. 

The French Empire in 1869. — Subterranean Throes. — Manifestations. — The Assassination of Victor Noir. 
— Pierre Bonaparte. — The RMt of Rochefort. — Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Workmen sing- 
ing the Marseillaise. — The Imperial Press Law. 



WHEN 1 returned from Spain, in the 
autumn of 1869, the subterranean 
throes which had been announced by the 
volcanic shimmer were clearly perceptible. 
The Empire had met with serious reverses 
since the clu.se of its splendid festival of 
1867, and there was a strange irony in 
the fate which fashioned the instruments 
of its destruction out of the power which 
it had persecuted most unrelentingly 
since the coup d'Etat. 

Nothing could be mere interesting to 
a journalist than to watch the battle of 
French journalism with the French Em- 
pire, in this autumn of 1869. The two 
jiowers were fairly pitted against each 
other, neither desiring to give nor to take 
quarter. Rochefort had arisen into a 
power witii which the Empire was com- 
pelled to count. He had grouped around 
him many unruly and some disreputable 
personages, and was recognized as a 
possible leader in any riot or revolution 
which mightoccur, Rochefort had been, 
since the annihilation of his Lanteme in 
Paris, publishing this little paper at 
Brussels, and having it smuggled into 
France. The Empire, which had at one 
time fined him 10,000 francs, sen- 
tenced him to a year's imprisonment, 
and deprived him for a year of his civil 
rights, in vain heaped upon him new 
sentences. From his secure retreat in 
Belgium he sent forth most virulent 
attacks upon the Empire and all the Im- 
perial personages; and to crown his 
triumph he was elected by the Irrecon- 



cilable Democrats to the Corps LegidatiJ 
from one of the wards of Paris. He 
came boldly into France, and was, of 
course, arrested on crossing the Belgian 
frontier; hut the Emperor, who did not 
dare to treat Rochefort otherwise than 
with consideration, gave the journalist a 
safe conduct, allowing him to remain in 
the country until after the election. 

Kocliefort received nearly 18,000 votes 
against 13,415 given to his opponent, 
and naturally was safe from arrest SO 
soon as he was elected deputy. His 
popularity in those days was so great 
that he could not appear in tin open car- 
riage, or in the court-yard of a hotel, with- 
out attracting an immense crowd. People 
liked to protest against the methods of 
the Empire by silently manifesting their 
appreciation of its opponents. They did 
not dare to cheer, or to print what they 
thought about the courageous journalists 
who were opening the way to the Repub- 
lic, but they could not be hindered from 
"manifesting " now and again upon the 
streets. 

In those days manifestations were 
much talked of, and the Empire had a 
certain dread of them. On the day of 
my return from Spain, iu October of 
1869, a great gathering was announced 
to take place on the Place de la Con- 
corde. But the cavalry and infantry 
were set in motion, and few people liked 
to run the risk of arrest, so that the mani- 
festation was all made by one vapor- 
ing, crazy, old man, who had long been 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



133 



a familiar sight in Paris, and who ha- 
rangued the Obelisk of Luxor concerning 
things in general, but was not so crazy 
that he undertook to attack the Empire. 
The creation of the Marseillaise by 
Rochefort, in December of 1869, was 
scoffed at by the supporters of the 
Empire, but it proved to 1 power- 
ful agent in hastening the downfall of 



great Communal insurrection, to Prince 
Pierre Bonaparte, to ask satisfaction for 
an insult which the Prince, who was any- 
thing butprincelyin his manner of speech, 
had addressed to the editors of a radical 
paper, called the Revenge. Prince 
Pierre, as the Empire's ill-luck would 
have it. was in a frightful temper on the 
morning of Victor Xoir's visit ; and when 




THE MURDER OF VICTOR NOIR. 



the Imperial authority. The very name 
of this saucy and vindictive journal was 
a menace to Napoleon, who had ren- 
dered it a penal offence to sing the 
Marseillaise in any part of the domain 
of France. Attached to this paper was 
a young Parisian journalist, a veritable 
enfantdu peuple, ignorant, but energetic, 
and wielding a caustic pen. On the 
10th of January, 1870, this young man, 
whose nom de plume was Victor Noir, 
was sent by Paschal Grousset, who was 
afterwards destined to play a rdle in the 



the young journalist, accompanied by 
one of his colleagues, entered the apart- 
ment of the Prince at Auteuil and stated 
his mission, there was a lively quarrel. 
The Prince had challenged Rochefort on 
the previous evening, and fancied that 
Noir and his companion had come 
from the celebrated journalist with his 
answer. When he discovered his mis- 
take he took the letter which the young 
journalist handed him. read it carefully 
through, tossed it upon a chair, and, 
advancing, said : — 



134 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



" I challenged M. Rochefort because 
he is tin 1 color-bearer of the mo)) : as 
to M. Grousset, I have no answer for 
him. Are you in sympathy with these 
wretches ? " 

Victor Noir immediately answered 
that he was entirely in sympathy with 
the persons whom lie represented ; 
whereupon, the Prince gave him a blow* 
in his face, and then, stepping back, 
drew a revolver ami fired at Noir, who 
was at that moment very near him. 

The young man pressed his hand to 
his breast, and managed to walk out of 

the house, lint fell upon the sidewalk, 
and died almost instantly. A more 
cowardly assassination was never com- 
mitted, nor one less excusable from 
every point of the French-code relative 
to the maintenance of honor. Prince 
Pierre's version, carefully prepared 
afterwards, was that he was attacked 
by Victor Noir, and that he saw the 
other journalist about to draw a pistol ; 
whereupon he determined to defend 
himself. 

The excitement caused by the news 
that a member of the Imperial family — 
for Prince Pierre, although he was the 
bite noir of his enthroned cousin, and 
as little imperial as might well be imag- 
ined, still bore the name of Bonaparte — 
had assassinated a child of the people, 
is quite impossible to describe. The 
Marseillaise appeared next morning 
framed in black, and thousands on thou- 
sands of copies were sold on the streets, 
before the police interfered to prevent 
a further circulation of an "Appeal to 
the People." which Rochefort, casting 
all prudence to the winds, had signed 
and printed. The head-lines, " Assas- 
sination of a Citizen by Prince Pierre 
Bonaparte," " Attempted Assassination 
of another Citizen by Prince Pierre 
Bonaparte," provoked an uprising iii the 



popular quarters, where the workmen 
had long desired a. pretext to descend 
into the aristocratic section of the city, 
and manifest their disapproval of the 
Empire and its followers: and there 
wcic some exciting moments at theTuil- 
eries during these bleak January days 
which followed the Victor Noir " inci- 
dent," as the Imperial journals called it. 

The murder occurred on tile 10th, and 
the funeral was fixed for the 12th, of 
January. < )n the morning of the funeral 
M. Rochefort came down to his office, to 
find that his journal had been seized, 
and that a demand for his prosecution 
hail been introduced into the Corps 
Lrijislutif; and the funeral, which took 
place in the early afternoon, certainly 
brought together as many as two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand men of the 
working-classes, who left their workshops 
and went in orderly and grim procession 
down the long line of the boulevard and 
up the Champs Klvsees. and out to the 
little cemetery where the unlucky Youth- 
ful journalist was to be laid to rest. The 
Imperial authorities had consigned to 
their barracks all the troops in Paris, 
with instructions to be ready to march 
at a moment's notice, and the workmen 
wen' allowed to go to the funeral without 
any molestation whatever. Hundreds of 
police spies, iii plain clothes, were dis- 
persed throughout the throng, and car- 
ried their reports from time to time to 
the Prefect of Police, who was to inter- 
fere if, on the return from the funeral, 
there was any attempt at a riot. 

It would lie difficult to define the 
demeanor of the vast crowd assembled 
at this gathering. I have seen but 
one other demonstration like it in 
France, and that was, oddly enough, 
also at a funeral, — that of M. Thiers, 
which took place during the great 
counter-revolution of 1877, when people, 



EUROTE JN STORM AXD CALM. 



135 



laboring under strong excitement, felt 
constrained in their own interests and 
in those of their country to refrain 
from any open expression of discontent 
with the government. At this funeral 
of Victor Noir the sea of upturned 
human faces, all filled with a profound 
discontent, a lurking ferocity which was 
not yet ready to wake into vigorous 



of Police clapped his hands and said, 
" Here are a hundred thousand bayonets 
fallen from heaven to help us ! " 

The clever prefect understood the 
value of rain in damping the enthusiasm 
of mobs as well as did old Petion, Mayor 
of Paris, who looked out of his window 
and said, " There will be no revolution 
to-day, for it rains." 



Hi 







^my.i 



f^Xk'yv*/ m i rfejMv 



R0CHEF0RT AND THE WORKING-MEN RIDDEN DOWN. 



action, but which seemed to prophesy 
terrible things for the future, was an im- 
pressive spectacle, which no one who 
witnessed it can ever forget. The Im- 
perial police knew full well upon that 
day that a word, a song, a shout, 
might be sufficient to overturn the 
Empire, and a friend who was pres- 
ent in M. Pietri's cabinet, when the im- 
mense procession of workmen began to 
return from the cemetery, in the midst 
of a shower of rain, told me that the ( hief 



But revolution was near at hand, and 
never nearer than when, as if moved by 
some sudden inspiration, some influence 
entirely independent of their volition, 
these thousands upon thousands of work- 
men began to sing the Marseillaise with 
a vigor and a rude energy which were 
quite startling. This splendid song, 
which had been so long tabooed, put 
a curious fire into the blood of many 
of the spectators who did not mingle in 
the manifestation. The end of the re- 



13G 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



pressive period had come. What no 
man dared to do, what he could not have 
done without being fined and imprisoned 
and qualified as a criminal, two hundred 
and fifty thousand men could do, and none 
could say them nay. The journal and the 
journalist had brought about this sudden 
uprising. It taught the people thatthey 
had but to move, and the obstacles in 
their road would be brushed aside This 
was a proud day for Rochefort. lie 
was the hern of the demonstration at 
the cemetery, and from the windows in 
the little house in which the bereaved 
Noil' family lived he had made a ring- 
ing speech, in which, however, he coun- 
selled moderation ami prudence ; for, 
be said, •• The government would like 
nothing better than to put down forever 
the Republic, if we should try to declare 
it to-day. As to our vengeance, it will 
come. From the government we expect 
nothing, we wish nothing of it, and 
nothing further to do with it. Its fall 
is fated, and near at band. For this 
reason I beg you to be patient ami 
calm." 

But this advice, like that of the stu- 
dent who begged his comrades not to 
nail the proctor's ears to the pump, was 
taken in an inverse sense ; and I have no 
doubt that the thousands who went down 
the Champs Flvsees singing the Mar- 
seillaise thought that the Republic would 
be declared that day. Rochefort was 
obliged to head this strange procession, 
but presently found himself confronted 
with squadrons of cavalry, backed up by 
platoons of police; and in the neighbor- 
hood of the Palais de l'lndustrie he 
saw the glittering bayonets of regiments 
of infantry. The Riot Act was read, 
and the workmen, after great confusion 
and many threats, were dispersed. But 
all the quarters inhabited by the humbler 
classes were in a perturbed state ; and, 



had it not been for the incessant patrol- 
ling of the streets by cavalry, a revolu- 
tion would certainly have occurred that 
night. Prince Pierre was arrested by 
order of the Emperor, and taken to the 
Corwiergerie, where he was allowed com- 
fortable quarters in the director's room. 
I visited him there, and shall never for- 
get the emphasis with which be declared 
that, if he might put himself at the head 
of a regiment of gendarmes, he would 
agree to sweep away all the would-be 
rioters within two hours. But bis con- 
fidence was greater than that of his Im- 
perial cousin, who began to feel that the 
end was indeed near at hand. 

This was the winter of 1870, and this 
was the second great blow which the 
fortunes of the Empire had received. In 
I sijs Leon Gambetta had entered upon 
the scene of French politics with that 

theatrical pose ami magnificent abandon 
which characterized all his movements 
until the sudden and tragic close of his 
life ; and it was in connection with a 
battle of the newspapers against the 
Empire that he won immediate and last- 
ing renown. Gambetta had been but 
little heard of outside the caf is and the 
dining-rooms of the Latin Quarter, where 
he was wont to air his contemptuous, and 
sometimes majestic, eloquence, until the 
Imperial ministry prosecuted the journals 
which had opened a subscription in honor 
of the memory of Baudin, the represent- 
ative of the people, who was killed upon 
a barricade in the Faubourg St. Martin, 
at the time of the coup d'Etat. This sub- 
scription, and the orderly and inoffensive 
manifestations which took place at the 
tomb of Baudin in the Montmartre ceme- 
tery, were scarcely worth the rigors in 
which the Imperial courts had indulged, 
and the papers resolved to give battle. 
The Iti'rcil. which was one of the first 
journals prosecuted, gave its case into the 



EVROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



137 




GAMBETTA IN THE BAUDIN PROSECUTION. 



hands of Gambetta. He wanted no finer raugued the head of the Second Empire 

opportunity to make the protest which as the betrayer of the trust reposed in 

he had meditated upon for years, and in him, and as the destroyer of the liberties 

a passionate outburst of indignation, on of France. 

one gloomy afternoon, in a little court- This produced an immense sensation, 

room in the Palais de Justice, lie ha- all the greater because the country had 



138 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



been long destitute of a protesting voice, 
and the accusations of the young advo- 
cate rang through the whole land from 
Calais to Marseilles. So ureal, was 
Gambetta's personal excitement on this 
occasion that, as M. Weiss has told us, 
the Imperial advocate and the president 
of the court tried in vain a number of 
times to interrupt and moderate his pas- 
sionate harangue ; l>nt their voices were 
drowned in the thunder of the lawyer's 
speech and in the powerful protestation 
of his delivery. 

Thus, in an afternoon, Gambetta 
stepped into the front rank of European 
orators, and into the opposition to the 
Empire. At the general elections in 
1869 he was adopted as a candidate for 
Marseilles and for Paris. Son of the 
South, with the powerful yet poetic 
temperament of the people of Provence, 
he appealed irresistibly to the passions 

and the affections of the people of Mar- 
seilles, and won his election there over 
.such powerful opponents as M. de Les- 
seps and M. Thiers. At Paris his 
victory was absolute. He chose to rep- 
resent Marseilles, and thus permitted 
Kochefort to take his seat in the Corps 
Ligislatif, for liochefort had been a can- 
didate in the same ward as Gambetta. 
lie was soon at the head of the little 
hand of " Irreeoncilables," as they were 
called, and was one of the most valiant 
defenders of Kochefort when the govern- 
ment asked the chamber to authorize the 
prosecution of the editor of the Marseil- 
laise. 

Looking back upon the history of the 
Second Empire, it seems almost incredi- 
ble that Napoleon III. and his minis- 
ters should not have possessed sufficient 
common-sense to have accepted the 
lessons of French history. They should 
have realized that it has always been 
fatal to French governments perma- 



nently to trifle with the liberties of the 
press. But, from the moment that the 
rim/! (VElut was a success, the Empire 
had signalled out the public prints as 
containing the greatest danger to the 
newly made Empire. To read the press 
law of that period is almost stupefying. 
One wonders how a nation could have 
permitted such complete degradation of 
its liberties. Trial by jury for all press 
offences was abolished, and the unhappy 
writer who had offended the reigning 
powers was brought up like a. com- 
mon malefactor before the Correctional 
Court. In 1852 a specially odious legis- 
lation against the press was enacted. 
It subjected all political journals to what 
might be called a preventive regime, 
placing them at the mercy of the gov- 
ernment. It so raised the "stamp- 
tax," and the sum of tin- •• caution 
money " to be deposited, that the crea- 
tion of a journal by persons of mod- 
erate means was impossible. It then 
prevented the foundation of journals 
treating of political or social economy 
without a special decree, which it was 
difficult to get. Then, when the jour- 
nal was founded, its existence was ex- 
tremely precarious. A warning would 
he sent in by an Imperial official, and 
the editor was expected immediately to 
profit by it; for a third warning carried 
with it the suppression of the offending 
journal. It was forbidden to journal- 
ists to give any account of the sessions 
of the Corps Ligislatif and the Senate 
other than that furnished by the official 
reporters. This regulation, which is 
almost Oriental in its despotic flavor, is 
justly characterized by a famous French 
writer as at once puerile and grotesque. 

But it is useless to pass in extended 
review the press legislation of the Empire. 
I will finish by illustrating the working 
of the stamp-tax. which was one of the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



139 



meanest of the small tyrannies levied 
against the free circulation of the printed 
word. Every American journal which 
came into France during the Empire paid 
a tax of six cents. Returning from a 
visit to Germany, shortly after the dec- 
laration of war, and just before the 
siege of Paris began, I found waiting me 
atabanking-house eighty American news- 
papers, upon each one of which I was 
compelled to pay the sum of six cents. 
This stamp-tax was a grievous bur- 
den upon provincial newspapers, and 
undoubtedly prevented their extensive 
circulation. M. de Villemessant, of the 
Figaro^ tried to avoid a portion of the 



stamp-tax upon his paper by having edi- 
tions printed in Brussels, and brought into 
France ; but the Empire soon put a stop 
to this. In the Corps Ligislatif, in 1870, 
a movement was made to do away with 
the odious tax ; but it was immediately 
stated that " the government could not 
allow the abolition of such a source of 
income before 1872." The repressive 
influence of the tax can be best judged 
of by the fact that the Petit Journal of 
Paris circulated only three hundred thou- 
sand copies under the Empire ; but under 
the Republic has a circulation of eight 
hundred thousand copies. 



140 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN. 

The Emperor and lii^ Speeches from the Throne. — Opening Day of the Corps Legislatif. — The Opposi- 
tion.- -Sketches of the Leading Members. — M. Thiers and his Attitude towards the Second 

Km I lire. — The Splendor of his Irony. — His Kloi|iience ( uaracterized. — Berryer, Lanjuinais, Jules 

Simon, and Jules Ferry. — Rochefort and his Yellow Gloves. 

FEW scenes in European ceremonies supposed to have suspended their work 

were more unique in glow of pict- that they might admire the passage of 

uresque uniforms, brilliant toilettes of their sovereign, but who were really, on 

ladies, and gorgeous equipages, than the most opening days, " hired for the 

opening of the French chambers during occasion." 

the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III. The Place du Carrousel is a noble 
We have seen that the Second Empire square, into which thousands of persons 
was noted for its punctilious regard for can pack themselves without the least 
ceremonials, anil the profusion of its inconvenience. Under the smoothly paved 
splendor, whenever occasion offered. On Moor were said to run hugepassages, com- 
ihe return from Compiegne to town, the munieating with the adjacent barracks, so 
Erst duty of the " man of destiny" and that at any time the armed men of Cad- 
his retainers was to open the legislative mus might spring out of the ground at a 
bodies " with a speech from the throne." sudden signal. The brown walls of the 
A procession, in which the order of Louvre, from which look clown the stat- 
precedeuce in rank was most carefully ues of the artists and historians of old 
observed, passed through the Palace of France, are richly and grotesquely carved. 
the Tuilcries on the day of tile opening, The beautiful park in the centre of the 
through the roi, ins under the Clock Pa- square is kept green until very late in 
vilion, along the Place tin Carrousel, to the autumn, and fountains send up their 
the Salle des Etats, in the ancient Louvre, jewelled spray night and day. In sum- 
The Cent-Gardes, in their charming uni- mer this park is the resort of contem- 
forms of blue and red, rode behind the plative nurse-maids, with babies clinging 
Emperor's carriage, in his miniature to their skirts. Hut on the 29th of No- 
journey from palace to palace, gazing vember, " opening day," the square was 
neither to right nor to left, erect, impel- invaded by the showy carriages of the 
turlialile as stone images. The crowd members of the diplomatic corps and all 
in the Place du Carrousel was always the great State functionaries, the magis- 
extrenielv democratic. There were trates, and the representatives of the 
roughs from Belleville, market-women commercial corporations. The diplo- 
from the Ilalles Centrales, commercial matic carriages were passed in review ae 
men from the boulevards, and line-look- they sped down the narrow line formed 
ing ladies, with their pretty daughters, by the waiting throng, and the occupant 
from the Faubourg St. Germain; and of each vehicle was cheered, or treated 
there, too, was a fringe of working-men, with contemptuous silence, according as 
in blue and white blouses, who were the popular passions were influenced for 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



141 




THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE. 



or against the country which it repre- tion of his intention to " preserve order," 

sented. appeared upon the scene. A double line 

But no demonstrations, either of respect of soldiers extended from the iron fence 

or disrespect, were indulged in when the surrounding the Clock Pavilion of the 

Imperial master, who had inaugurated Tuileries down to the Louvre door, over 

his career by such uu energetic afflrma- which a silken canopy was raised. Orti- 



142 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



<-cis with drawn swords paraded before 
their men, and presently the Emperor's 
carriage, with one before and one fol- 
lowing it, drove slowly down through 
the double line. In the Salle des Etats 
Napoleon mounted the throne in the 
midst of his cardinals, his favorites, and 
the various dignitaries lie had created; 
and the Prince Imperial was placed <m a 
lower chair or stood up nearby. When 
the Empress attended the Speech from the 
Throne she usually arrived a short time 
In' Tore the Emperor, wliogenerally camein 
in a hurry, plumped down into the throne 
chair, glanced at the decorations and at 
the audience, mopped his face with his 
handkerchief, looked a little perplexed, 
then jumped up and began his speech, 
which was usually of stereotyped form, 
with very slight changes for an allusion 
to the important events of the year. In 
18G9 he observed in his speech that it 
was difficult to maintain liberty peace- 
ably in France. After the speech a 
salute of twenty-one guns was fired from 
the Esplanade of the Invalides ; then the 
names of the deputies were called, and 
were frequently saluted by applause or 
scornful laughter from the favored ones 
who had been invited to the ceremony. 
The little knot of Opposition deputies of 
the Corps Ligislatif rarely attended the 
Speech from the Throne, and desired 
their absence to lie interpreted as a pro- 
test against the Emperor's participation 
in the politics of the Empire which he 
had created. 

The work of the session was begun on 
the following day in the Palais Bourbon, 
which had been invaded by the soldiers 

of Napoleon III. at the time of the i-mi/i 

d'Etiit. and which was destined to be the 
scene of the Empire's downfall in 1870. 
This old-fashioned palace, with its great 
door like a triumphal arch in the centre 
of an open Corinthian colonnade, is one 



of the gaudy monuments of the eigh- 
teenth century, and was built by 
an Italian architect for the dowa- 
ger Duchess of Bourbon. When the 
Revolution came the palace was confis- 
cated to the nation, and in 1790 was 
known as the Maison de In Revolution. 
In 1 T'.ij the reception-rooms of the 
palace were transformed into an as- 
sembly hall for the Council of the Five 
Hundred; and in 180-1 Napoleon I. 
ordered the construction of the monu- 
mental facade which overlooks the river 
Seine. The palace is adorned with bas- 
reliefs, representing Prance standing be- 
tween •■ Liberty" and "Public order; " 
a bit of sculpture which (he Emperor, it 
is said, used to contemplate with great 
satisfaction, and which he considered 
typical of his reign. There are also 
colossal statues to Themis and Minerva, 
and to Sully. Colbert, and other great 
Frenchmen. The hall in which the legis- 
lators of the Empire sat was in the 
form of a hemicycle, with seats rising. 
as in a Roman amphitheatre. Around 
about, at the top. are ranged statues of 
Reason, Justice, Prudence, and Elo- 
quence, and between the pedestals of the 
columns were bas-reliefs, representing 
Louis Philippe accomplishing certain 
acts of his reign. In numerous other 
halls of the palace are paintings by 
Horace Vei'net, and statues of Mira- 

beau, of Bailly, of Casimir Perier, ami 
General Foy. The throne hall is dec- 
orated with paintings by Delacroix. 
Attached to the palace is a small and 
elegant mansion, which is always inhab- 
ited by the president of the Lower 
Chamber, and the possession of which is 
one of the perquisites attached to his 
office. Here Gambetta came, when at 
the height of his career, to occupy the 
rooms in which the Imperial favorites 
had lived before him, and which would 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



143 



have seemed to him, in 18G9, as far out 
of his reach as the North Pole. 

The old Palais Bourbon was given 
back to the Prince of Condi, who was 
the grandson of the Duchess of Bourbon, 
in 1814 ; but he continued to allow the 
State to occupy it, and the Chamber con- 
tinued its sessions there. In 1827 the 
government purchased from him a part 
of the palace, and in 1830 bought the 
remainder from the Due d'Aumale, 
into whose hands it had come, spending, 
it is said, about 10,000,000 francs 
for the purchase. In the Revolution of 
1848 the people stormed the Palais 
Bourbon, and when the Constituent As- 
sembly came to take its seat (here a 
temporary hall was provided for them. 
This w;is again invaded on the 15th of 
May, 1848, and was demolished at the 
beginning of the Empire. 

There was more curiosity about the 
session of the Corps Ligislatif in the 
latter days of the Second Empire than 
people manifest about the sessions of the 
Republican Chamber of Deputies, chiefly 
because the newspapers were not allowed 
to indulge in the free-and-easy reports 
of the debates which are now so uni- 
versal. But there was rarely, from 18G7 
to the Empire's downfall, any remarkable 
eloquence in the halls of the Palais Bour- 
bon, unless it came from the little group 
of the Opposition. M. Rouher was a con- 
vincing speaker only for those who had 
made up their minds to adopt the Im- 
perial policy. He would talk on for 
hours, uttering platitudes as if they 
were the most brilliant sallies of wit. 
In the autumn of 1809, and during the 
winter session of 1870, the attention of 
the country was closely drawn to the at- 
titude of the Opposition, which had been 
waxing valiant year by year, and which 
now had become openly aggressive. 
Gambetta had not, as yet, begun to 



speak with freedom in the Corps Lcgis- 
latif; but his mere presence, after his 
tremendous tilt at the Imperial power in 
his speech about the Baudin subscrip- 
tion, seemed to give fresh confidence and 
energy to the men who had been battling 
for free institutions, and fighting for an 
apparently hopeless cause, since tin' elec- 
tion of 1857. 

In that year five Republicans entered 
the Corps Leg islatif, and allot them were 
destined to play an important part in the 
declining years of the Empire. These 
live men were Jules Favre, Ernest Picard, 
Emile Ollivier, Henon, and Darimon. 
In those days to speak against the gov- 
ernment was little less than a crime, and 
the majorities of the Empire were almost 
unanimous. In this trying school Jules 
Favre, one of the most polished and 
accomplished orators whom France lias 
ever possessed, won golden opinions on 
all sides for the richness and beauty of 
his diction, and, from allgeuerous-minded 
men, for the liberalism of his ideas. 
Emile Ollivier. too, had no thought of 
rallying to the Empire then ; and these 
few were so accustomed to fighting alone 
that they were somewhat surprised when, 
in the general elections of 1SC3, Jules 
Simon, Glais-Bizoin, and many other 
men of mark, were added to their num- 
ber. In 1X114 the new elections brought 
to the Corps Ligislatif no less personages 
than MM. Thiers, Berryer, and Lanjui- 
nais. These three strongmen gravitated 
naturally to the Republican group, al- 
though it is certain that M. Thiers, at 
that time, would have been loth to declare 
himself a Republican. But their counsels 
aud their vast political and legal elo- 
quence added strength to the Opposition, 
which the Empire was far from disdain- 
ing. "We remember well," writes M. 
Jules Simon, " this epoch, when all 
those who did not give themselves up to 



144 



KVROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



the Empire possessed a common hate 
and a common love : a hate for the gov- 
ernment whose whole history and policy 
reposed 1 1 ) >> > 1 1 falsehood and tended to 
tyranny ; a love for all liberty, which was 
doubly dear to them by the contrast." 
In 1869 the Opposition was still further 
strengthened by the election of MM. Bar* 
thi'li'iny St.. Hilaire, Jules Ferry. Gam- 
betta, Jules Gr<5vy, Rampont, Wilson, 
and the malicious and ambitious Roche- 
fort. There was but one desertion from 
the ranks of this brave party during the 
existence of the Empire, and that was in 
1867, when Emile Ollivier was converted 
to the Empire by the specious promises 
of constitutional reform which the Em- 
peror had made. 

The great men of the Opposition until 
the opening of 1870 were unques- 
tionably MM. Thiers. Berryer, Jules 
Favre, and Jules Simon. The attitude 
of M. Thiers towards the Empire was 
invariably curious, and in some respects 
comical. No figure in the Chamber was 
more dreaded by the Imperialist party 
than that of this wizened little man, 
with his white hair, his wrinkled feat- 
ures, his squeaky voice, and his abun- 
dant gestures. Around his venerable 
form there seemed to cling the halo of 
half a. hundred ministerial revolutions, 
of conspiracies and intrigues innumer- 
able. Wars and rumors of wars, and 
diplomatic combinations too numerous 
to mention, were connected with his 
parliamentary history. He was a per- 
petual thorn in the flesh of the Emperor, 
whom he persistently treated as an ill- 
behaved stripling. Time was, indeed, 
when the old man eloquent, in the 
pauses of his wrath, came down into 
the regions of irony, and lashed the 
Emperor with phrases which, while they 
could not lie resented, (ait like the 
thrust of a keen rapier. Wherever and 



whenever it was possible to attack ; 
whether on questions of internal or ex- 
ternal policy; whether upon free trade 
or upon lying promises of much-needed 
reform, — the alert ami intense patriot 
was to the fore, never at fault for a 
fact, and drawing from the storehouse 
of his prodigious memory a hundred 
wounding and unpleasant souvenirs 
with which to assail and belittle the Im- 
perial legend. It is believed that in 

the last days of the Empire M. Thiers, 
long before he confessed it, was con- 
verted to Republicanism by the keen 
disgust which he felt for the processes 
of the Empire. His profound knowl- 
edge of European affairs, his immense 
and tender patriotism, his deep regret 
and shame for the manner in which the 
resources of France were neglected, 
and his scorn for the army of courtiers 
and courtesans which blinded the Em- 
peror to the danger approaching him, 
caused M. Thiers many a pang which 
he would not confess to the stranger; 
for of all men of this latter half of 
this century, not even excepting Lin- 
coln, no man has felt so intensely for 
his country as did M. Thiers. He lived 
to see his promises justified, and to 
take into his hands, feeble as they were, 
at a time when most men are called to 
sit in a corner and look on, the defence 
of the nation which had been so rudely 
tried, and to blow into flame with his 
breath the almost extinguished embers 
of national feeling. 

The eloquence of M. Thiers in the 
Chamber of the Empire was rarely, as we 
came to see it in later days, pathetic 
and touching, almost surcharged with 
tears; but it was harsh, biting, vindic- 
tive, sparkling, sometimes wicked. The 
practical side of the old man was always 
uppermost. He hated, despised, ridi- 
culed, punished ; but he did not weep. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



14. r ) 



He did not rise into passionate appeal dominates the Assembly with his head 

and noble flights of speech until the thrown back. He carries it as Mira- 

hour of supreme danger had arrived. beau carried his. lie settles himself in 

M. Berryer and M. Thiers made a the tribune, and takes possession of it as 

splendid pair. It was not in vain that if he were the master, I had almost said 




THIERS IN THE TRIBUNE. 



M. Berryer had been called, '-after the despot. But that which is especially 

Mirabcau, the greatest of French ora- incomparable in him is the rich sound of 

tors." "He is," said an admiring his voice, the first of beauties in actors 

writer, who described him when he was and orators." He was a Liberal whom 

at the height of his brilliant career, Republicans coveted, and with whom 

"eloquent in all his personality. He they could not fail to sympathize, re- 



146 



EURO I' E /y STORM AND CALM. 



membering thai he had been the de- 
fender of Lamennais, that he had urged 
the enactment of many democratic laws 
and that he had manifested towards the 
Emperor an uncompromising hostility, 
even refusing when he was elected a 
member of the Academy to make the 
accustomed visit to the Chief of State. 
It is fair to suppose that had M. Ber- 
ryer lived to join with M. Thiers in the 
great events which followed the Septem- 
ber Revolution in 1870, he, too, might 
have announced his faith in the Repub- 
lic, frankly relinquishing the monarchi- 
cal principles which were no longer 
possible in his country. 

Jules Ferry and Jules Simon, as 
members of the Opposition, were widely 
different in their methods of attack 
and in their views on many subjects. 
Their parliamentary reputation is justly 
great, and will live long in the history of 
France. Both had only to open their 
mouths to charm the listeners. M. 
Simon, who is to-day more conservative 
than he was before the establishment of 
the Republic, showed, in his subtle and 
adroit tactics, the results of the educa- 
tion which he had received at the hands 
of the Jesuits; yet he was and is a tine 
humanitarian, and was then deeply im- 
pressed with the necessity for a complete 
change, personally grieved at the dura- 
tion of the Empire, and gifted with such 
facility for luminous exposition of his 
views that he was highly prized, even 
by those Republicans who did not think 
he went quite far enough. 

Jules Favre had been a. conspicuous 
figure from the outset of the Imperhil 

rnjimr. 1 te had refused to take the oath 

to the new constitution. lie defended 
Orsini in 1858 in a speech of great bold- 
ness for the time. He fought the sup- 
pression of the free press with all his 
might. I Ie declared against the war with 



Austria, in 1859, and expended all the 
resources of his irony on the policy of 
the government in Mexico. It was sad 
that in later years he was singled out by 
tin' hand of Fate to take upon his .shoul- 
ders the humiliations which should have 
been visited on the Empire, to be put in a 
place for which he was scarcely lit, — that 
of Minister of War after the establish- 
ment of the government of National De- 
fense, — and to be compelled day by day 
for weeks to fence with that consummate 
master of intrigue, the then Count Bis- 
marck, who was prepared to exact from 
France without mercy. 

The other Republican figures in the 
Corps Ligislatif were not of enduring 
importance. M. Barthelcuiy St. Hilaire 
was a venerable philosopher, who assumed 
considerable prominence after the fall of 
the Empire. Men like Crcrnieux, Es- 
quiros, Bethmont, and Wilson were hard 
workers, and occasionally made good 
speeches. The obstinate and capable 
Jules Ferry, destined to have a lone' and 
strong political career later on, was just 
then emerging from obscurity, writing 
vigorously in the columns of Republican 
papers against Baron Haussinann and his 
administration of the city of Paris, and 
recognized as a growing man, but not as 
a leader. Gambetta, as I have said, was 
gathering his forces for the great efforts 
which were to come. M. Grew, who was 
t<> be the President of the Republic, was 
but little heard of. The Radical clique 
distinguished itself, as it does to-day, by 
noisy and even by absurd propositions, 
which the Empire treated with the same 

passionless disdain accorded to the party 
bv the moderate Republicans of to-day. 
Rocheforl felt ill at ease ami out of place 
in the legislative body. ••lie wore," 
said a lady "ho described to me his first 
appearance in the Corps Ligislatif, — "he 
wore yellow gloves." His picturesque 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



147 



personality procured him much attention, 
however. His tall, gaunt form, his lean 
and scraggy features, his forehead sur- 
mounted with a tuft of haii - already be- 
ginning to turn gray, were at once seized 
as legitimate prey by the caricaturists' 
pencils. M. Rochefort never forgot that 
he was born a gentleman, and perhaps his 
yellow gloves were intended as a subtle 
stroke of policy with which to capture 
the Extremist mind. 

The Opposition made a vigorous cam- 
paign against the Plebiscite with which 
the Emperor strove to prop his failing 
fortunes ; and M. Simon has given us a 
lively description of the meetings in the 
Rue de la Sourdiere, from which head- 
quarters the Republicans used to send 
out hundreds of thousands of circulars, — 
the only sort of political document which 
could be distributed with impunity, and 
then simply because it emanated from 



the elected representatives of the people. 
The Empire always had its police present 
at these meetings, sometimes in plain 
clothes, but often in uniform, and under 
the pretext that the meetings were of a 
socialistic character. 

This accusation was entirely untrue. 
The battle, although a violent one, and 
fought with consummate energy, was 
lost. The Empire got 7,350,000 citizens 
to vote "Yes," against 1.500,000 
"Noes," in favor of its project for 
revision of the constitution, and then 
turned triumphantly to Europe with this 
remark: "You see that the Emperor is 
indeed Emperor by the grace of God and 
the will of the people, and that the 
Empire will endure." 

So those who are about to die of a 
grave malady speak in hopeful and 
glowing terms of their recovery as near 
at baud. 



14S 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN. 

The Epoch of Unification. - - Danger to France from the National Growth in Italy and Germany. — Na- 
poleon III. and his Policy of Greed. — How he was Duped by the Northern Powers. — The King of 
Prussiaat Compiegne. — The Coronation March. — Bismarck in Paris. — The Luxembourg Affair. — 
Benedetti and Bismarck. — The Downfall of the Policy of Compensation. 



FROM a French point of view, and 
for the purpose of carrying out the 
traditional policy of France, — a policy 
which we arc not called upon here either 
to approve or Maine. — the nation had 
never been so much in need of strong 
diplomats and able politicians as it was 
during the last ten years of the Second 
Empire. Castelar, in one of those 
strange improvisations in which fancy 
and fact run together in perfect and 
dazzling harmony, has characterized 
each of the centuries since the dawn of 
the Renaissance, and has called the nine- 
teenth century that of democracy. He 
might have added that it was the cen- 
tury of the unification of peoples. 
In point of fact France was in danger 
at the very outset of the Second Empire 
from the powerful movements in prog- 
ress in two neighboring countries in 
favor of unification. Italy, which had 
been for so long merely an ancient 
name, covering, with senne sheen from 
its old-time glory, a feeble series of dis- 
severed and warring States, had at last 
felt the national impulse, and was work- 
ing with all its might for consolidation 
and for unity. Throughout the length 
and breadth of Germany the same 
feeling was more and more apparent 
yearly. On the sands of the north, 
where the Brandenburg pirates had 
once led a rude and reckless existence, 
a power had sprung up, which had 
already cast the shadow of centraliza- 



tion across the thrones of German 
dukes and petty princes, and which 
was now and then bold enough to talk 
of a vengeance 11)1011 France for the 
miseries and injuries which Napoleon I. 
had inflicted upon Germany. 

With United Italy on the one side, 
and United Germany on the other, it 
was evident that the policy of France 
must undergo vast modifications, and 
that her rank as a power in Europe 
must fatally be reduced. There were 
not wanting Frenchmen who thoroughly 
understood the danger : Frenchmen wily 
and experienced enough to have warded 
it off, or to have won for France, when 
these great movements for foreign unity 
took place, compensating advantages, 
which would have preserved her dignity 
and her station. 

But these wily anil experienced 
Frenchmen had been set aside. They 
were placed in the ranks of the Opposi- 
tion, of a hopeless and barren opposi- 
tion, which could not go to extreme 
limits without risk of summary reproof. 
I town even to a few months before the 
outbreak of the fatal war in which Na- 
poleon III. lost his crown it may be 
said that both branches of the Imperial 
— for it certainly was not a national — 
Legislature, were in complete servitude. 
A glance at their composition will 
serve fully to illustrate this fact. 

The Senate of the Second Empire was 
not only the creation, but the creature, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



149 



of the Emperor. It was reestablished 
after the coupd'Etat in 1851, very much 
upon the model of the Senate of the 
First: Empire, which drew its breath of 
life from Napoleon I., and which pos- 
sessed the most formidable powers, such 
as the accusation of the ministers, and 
the right to sit in judgment upon them, 
as well as the suspension of all the ordi- 
nary rules of criminal procedure : so that 
the Emperor could consummate any in- 
justice which might enter into his head. 
Napoleon III.'s Senate, which was 
sanctioned by the constitution of 1852, 
comprised within its ranks as senators, 
by right of their office, the cardinals, 
marshals, admirals, the members of the 
Imperial family, and in addition to these 
about one hundred and fifty senators 
named by the Chief of the State. 

It was not until April of 1870 that the 
Emperor, beginning to understand the 
immensity of the mistake which he had 
made in taking entirely into his too 
feeble hands the control of the destinies 
of a menaced, almost fated, country, 
decided that the number of senators 
should be increased, and that the body 
should more directly represent the feel- 
ings and wishes of the nation. Yet 
scarcely a year before this attempted 
liberal measure the Second Empire had 
conferred upon its Senate the same dan- 
gerous right which Napoleon I. had 
given to his, — the right to impeach the 
ministry ; and this was done in order 
that any minister, who should be in- 
fluenced by the aggressive nature of the 
popular demands for constitutional re- 
form and for a return to liberty, might 
be pounced upon and ingloriously ex- 
pelled from office. 

The Emperor paid his senators well. 
He gave them each 30,000 francs per 
year, and he felt that their important 
service was cheaply paid. Their main 



duty was to watch the Lower House, and 
to see that it never , by any sudden caprice, 
undertook to change the form of govern- 
ment. 

The Senate, that is to say. the Em- 
peror through the Senate, had the only 
right of initiative in legislation. The 
principles of democracy were reversed. 
Laws did not come up from the Lower 
House as directly representing the public 
will, to be discussed, amended, and im- 
proved by the grave and reverend seig- 
neurs of the Senate ; but they went down 
to this second chamber from the Senate, 
with an intimation that they were the 
outgrowth of the Imperial will, and that 
it would not be wise to indulge in too 
many commentaries upon them. For 
over the head of the < 'orps Ligislatif 
always hung the penalty of dissolution. 
In short, the Lower House was merely 
tolerated, while the Upper was maintained 
as the rigid sentinel to watch over the 
safet} 7 of the Empire, as the archers of 
old watched in the corridors of the 
palaces where the kings took their re- 
pose. 

The Corps LigislaMf, by the constitu- 
tion of 1852, became a feeble copy of its 
prototype at the beginning of the century. 
The whole electoral body was divided up 
into districts containing thirty thousand 
voters each ; and each one of these dis- 
tricts sent a deputy to the Corps TAgis- 
latif. The members were elected by 
universal suffrage for a term of six 
years. Their privileges were confined 
to discussing and voting upon the laws 
and the taxation of the Empire. They 
could not even introduce an amendment 
into the laws which had been proposed 
to them without the consent of the 
Council of State, which was another 
creature of the Empire. It was felt 
necessary in the constitution of 1852 to 
apologize to the world for this manner of 



150 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



shutting the mouths of the representa- 
tives of the people, and a paragraph of 
that instrument states that the < 'orps 
Ligislatif may freely discuss the law, 
may adopt it or reject it, but may not 
" introduce suddenly any of those amend- 
ments which so often disarrange all the 
economy of a system, and entirely change 
the primitive project." This sounded 
reasonable to the French people, coming 
as it did after the excesses of L848 ; but 
'm 18G0 the nation had learned the 
terrible significance of the slavery to 
which it had subjected itself. 

In 18G0, as a special favor, an Im- 
perial decree gave the Corps Ligislatif 
the right of replying by an address to 
the speech from the throne. This right 
was exercised for only six months, for 
the Emperor, who was beginning to 
dislike the freedom of the address of the 
deputies, withdrew the right and re- 
placed it by the right of " interpella- 
tion," or demand in open parliament for 
an explanation of certain points in the 
Imperial address. The "tribune," or 
tin' kind of pulpit from which French 
parliamentary orators had been wont to 
address their colleagues, was suppressed, 
and deputies were obliged to .speak from 
their places in the hall of assembly. 
The president of the chamber was named 
directly by the Emperor, and was paid 
handsomely for his services, lodging in 
the palace of the Corps Ligislatif, and 
receiving 100,000 francs yearly. The 
Emperor and his followers always made 
a vigorous effort to avoid coming into 
contact with the Corps Ligislatif, and 
interposed between it and them the 
President of the Council of State, or sonic 
other members of that body. But the 
most tyrannical of all the provisions 
which the Second Empire had imagined 
for placing the government in the hands 
of the irresponsible few was that by 



which the Senate could, as it were, take 
I he place of the Corps Ligislatif in case 
the latter were dissolved. 

The Senate of the Second Empire lived 
ingloriously, and dispersed in the same 
fashion. It was not even considered by 
the people, who were abroad in their 
might on the day of the declaration 
of the Republic (September 1, bs7<>), 
worth while to march to the hall 
where the senators were in session, 
anil to turn them out of office. " No- 
body," says one of the members of the 
government of National Defence in his 
memoirs, " nobody even gave a thought 
to the Senate. It had held, on the 
4th of September, a session at half- 
past twelve. One of the members had 
protested with indignation against the 
proposition of impeachment made by 
M. Jules Favre, and finished his re- 
marks by crying out, in a, loud voice: 
1 Vive I'Empereur! Vice Vlmpiratrice! 
Vive le Prince ImpiriaU' All the 
senators joined in the chorus. They 
then discussed the question whether they 
should remain in permanent session, or 
should meet again at eight o'clock that 
evening. They finished by deciding that 
they should hold a. session the next day. 
as usual. This was the last vote of the 
session." But, the evening before, M. 
Rouher, who considered a revolution as 
inevitable, had asked for a battalion of 
infantry to protect the Senate, and a 
general had given him a few customs 
officers as a guard. On the next day, 
when it had been resolved to hold a ses- 
sion, nothing occurred ; no senators were 
to be found. They had filtered away 
into the crowd, and disappeared to 
undergo various terms of voluntary 
exile. 

[t is difficult to judge whether Napoleon 
III. saw the gravity of the mistake which 
he had made, before the great collision at 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



151 



Sadowa, which brought the formidable 
Prussian nation to the very front of 
European powers. Whether or not lie 
had learned his error, it was his punish- 
ment that he was obliged to go on alone, 
undertaking a task for which he was in 
nowise fitted either by nature <>r training, 
seeing himself day by day the scorn of 
men whom he knew were competent to 
extricate him from his position, but out- 
side the pale of whose sympathy be had 
placed himself, and from whose knowl- 
edge he could ask no aid. It is the 
fashion among French Republicans to 
attribute all the disasters which befell 
France after July of 1870 to the be- 
sotted policy of the Emperor, which had 
neither firmness nor shrewdness, but 
which was characterized mainly by 
greed. His foible was observed at an 
early date by the apostles of German 
centralization, who had been puzzled 
because the French Emperor was not 
disposed to interfere boldly with the 
various projects which were to lead up 
to the unification of Germany. A 
clever series of manoeuvres was begun, 
with a view to discovering how far 
Napoleon was blinded by his sojourn at 
thi' height of power, and how far he 
could be urged, and possibly persuaded, 
into acquiescence in events the accom- 
plishment of which neither a French 
Monarchy nor a French Republic would 
have permitted without a struggle. 

It happened that the King of Prussia 
found it convenient to make a journey 
to Compiegne in the autumn of 1861, 
and there was much talk in the corridors 
of the palace, and in the clubs and par- 
lors of Paris, of a mysterious triple alli- 
anceof the three Courts of the Tuileries, 
of St. Petersburg, and of Berlin. Pam- 
phleteers wrote of the great agglomer- 
ation of States which represented the 
three races, the Latin, the Germanic, 



and the Slavic, to which corresponded 
the three centres of gravitation, France, 
Prussia, and Russia; and the journalists 
of the boulevards treated elaborately of 
the definite establishment of the peace 
of Europe by means of the "threefold 
alliance of the universal monarchies," in 
which should be epitomized, not only 
the three principal races of the European 
system, but also the three great branches 
of the Christian church. All this elabo- 
rate twaddle was imagined and planned 
by the adroit politicians of the north, 
coolly and carefully feeling their way 
among the obstacles which had so long 
prevented the consummation of their 
purpose, and which now seemed likely 
to be swept away because of the lack of 
foresight of a parvenu, who had taken 
into his hands the reins of government 
of a great nation without understanding 
how dangerous it was suddenly to change 
that nation's policy. 

IVo just-minded man, and certainly no 
American, would for an instant dream 
of blaming the northern politicians for 
their scheme of unification, or of too 
closely criticising their endeavors to 
lessen and weaken tin' opposition of 
France to that unification. But, from 
the French point of view, the Emperor, 
because of his blindness and of his greed, 
erred unpardonably, and brought about 
the crash which terrified, when it came, 
even such a stunt heart as that of M. 
Thiers. 

The story goes, that when the Kiie_i of 
Prussia made his first visit to Compiegne, 
where his renown as a " military prince" 
— as he was laughingly called by the 
courtiers ancHine ladies, who professed to 
consider his soldierly frostiness as eccen- 
tric and amusing — had preceded him, 
the Emperor ordered out for his guest's 
delectation the superb regiment of the 
"Guides;" and the noted band of that 



152 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

regiment, a band which was celebrated that Prussia had declared war against 

throughout Europe, played the " Coro- Austria ; but that, even if Prussia should 

nation March." The old lung of Prus- make conquests of territory, France was 

sia must have thought of this incident certain to have compensating concessions 

when lie put mi his Imperial crown in made to her. 

the chapel of the Palace of Versailles. The first downward step in his exte- 

No man but himself knows whether in rior policy had been made by the Em- 

those days, nine years before the Franco- peror when he permitted the throttling 

German war. he did not dream of the of Denmark ; the second was taken when 

invasion of France : but it is certain that lie did not interfere in the brief struggle 

his first, act on returning to his home was which ended at Sadowa. There was but 

the nomination of Count von Bismarck one step left for him to take, and that 

as the director of political affairs, and it he took at Sedan. 

was not lone before this great man. After the victory of Prussia over the 
w hose reputation was already European, Austrians at Sadowa. neitherthe Emperor 
went to Paris to finish at the Tuileries nor the Empress of the French had any 
the work so skilfully begun at Com- further illusions. It is said that the Em- 
piegne by his king. press, speaking one day of her son, re- 
in those days Bismarck was the friend, marked " that he would never reign in 
and almost the counsellor, of Napoleon France if Sadowa were not avenged." 
III. lie was very often at his side, and The passionate declarations of M. Thiers, 
never failed to talk of his plan of the although the Imperial party professed to 
reorganization of Europe. This reor- disregard them, were warnings which 
ganization, it is scarcely necessary to made them tremble. M. Rouher, as 
say, was based upon unity of action of Minister of State, undertaking to place 
France and Germany. In compensation in a, favorable light the statements of 
for the accomplishment of German unity the Emperor in his speech about Sadowa, 
France should have Luxembourg, later employed many specious phrases, but. 
on, and should annex Belgium, or should could not conceal the truth. " In ques- 
liave her eastern frontiers rectified, tak- tions." he said, " which neither affect, 
ing in the great iron districts of the the honor, the dignity, or the practical 
Saar, and even getting back Mayence. interests of our country, was it not the 
Prussia, meantime, would annex llano- duty of the Emperor's government, after 
vei. and would absorb all the German having loudly proclaimed its pacific 
States, up to the line of the river policy, to respect and to practise the 
Mein. rules of a loyal and sincere neutrality?" 
There is no denying the fact that the To this M. Thiers made answer: "All 
Emperor was completely won by this that Germany demands of us is the in- 
policy of intrigue. — a policy which in difference of France. She could ask 
reality contained no promise of fulfil- nothing more to her advantage. Now 
meiil which could be exacted, but con- it is this very indifference of which I 
tented itself with " glittering generali- have a mortal fear." 
ties." The Emperor struck the crowning Republicans and Monarchists appear 
blow to his own safety and popularity in agreed, in summing up the causes of the 
France without knowing it, when he an- country's disasters, that in 1866 a 
nounced, in one of his annual speeches, simple manifestation of French sym- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



153 



pathy for Austria would have hindered 
the progress of Count von Bismarck, and 
would have enabled Austria to inflict 
upon Prussia a serious humiliation. 

It does not detract from the renown 
of Bismarck to show that he was aided in 
great degree in the develop- 
ment of his colossal policy by 
the weakness of the dynasty 
in France. The fate that had 
given the French nation into 
Napoleon's hands prevented 
that nation from interfering 
in the beginnings of German 
unity in 1866. A year later 
it was too late for France to 
interfere, or to insist upon 
compensation. This was am- 
ply shown at the time in 1SII7 
when the French government 
had decided to bring officially 
to the notice of the Berlin 
Cabinet the convention con- 
cluded with Holland with re- 
gard to the cession of the 
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. 
In France a party, stung by 
the knowledge of the fact that 
its country had in some meas- 
ure been forced into second 
rank by the events at Sadowa, 
had manifested a great desire 
for a war. The Emperor him- 
self saw that the time had come 
when he must satisfy popular 
opinion at home by making an 
aggressive movement towards 
Berlin. He yielded to the 
representations of the Marquis de 
Moustiers, who was at that time Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, and consented 
that his representative in Germany 
should present a memorandum. If this 
were done successfully, and Prussia 
yielded, Napoleon thought that the 
success thus won by France would 



be considered as a compensation for 
Sadowa. 

So, on the afternoon of the 1st of 
April, 1867, Count von Bismarck, who 
had been receiving the compliments of 
numerous visitors on the occasion of his 




THE MAN OF DESTINY ON TEIE TUILERIES 
TERRACE. 



birthday, was just about to set out for 
his place in Parliament, when the visit of 
Count Benedetti, the French ambassa- 
dor, was announced. After the usual 
salutations the ambassador declared 
that he had a despatch to communicate 
from the French Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. 



l, r »4 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Count von Bismarck was somewhat to make to the interpellation." Aa 

startled. He at once divined the tenor he said this he pushed away for the 

fit' the despatch, as the Luxembourg second time the despatch which the 

affair was thru in full progress, and French Envoy tendered him. •• I shall 

for a moment he probably feared that say that the government ignores the 

Napoleon had erased to be a dupe of state of the question, and that for that 

the policy of promises. In short, he reason I cannot pronounce publicly 

felt that peace nr war hung upon a upon its intentions. I shall add that 

single thread. 1 have the assurance that no power 

His plan (if action was instantly re- will interfere with the incontestable 

solved upon. He knew that Bene- rights of the German countries, and 

detti himself was anxious to avoid an that the government hopes to make its 

outbreak of hostilities between France rights respected in a peaceful manner. 

and Germany, and he still had a hope That is what I shall say. because it is 

that Napoleon III. was not personally the truth, and because that declaration 

anxious for war, but, as was really the will enable me to undertake negotia- 

case, had yielded to the representations tious amicably, ami perhaps to arrive at 

of the angry national party. So when an understanding. But I could not 

Benedetti tried to take from his pocket give such a. response if I knew that 

the despatch. Count von Bismarck arose the convention for the sale of the 

and said that lie could not at that Grand Duchy had lieen concluded. If 

moment receive the ambassador politi- I learned of this sale officially I should 

cally, as he was obliged to go at once have to say to the Reichstag: 'Yes, 

to Parliament. He invited the amlias- such a, sale has taken place; but never 

sador to accompany him. and continue will Prussia nor her German allies per- 

the conversation as they went along, mit the accomplishment of this convention 

As thiv were going through the garden in and the cession <</' /his German territory.' 

front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs You can see," added Count von Bis- 

Beuedetti again tried to communicate inarck, very innocently, and quickening 

his despatch. Count von Bismarck did his pace, "that after such a deelara- 

not reply directly, but as they wended tion a. "rave conflict would he sure to 

their way through the alleys of the arise between Fiance and ourselves. 

gardens, he presently said : — This conflict, taking into account the 

" I am going into Parliament, and I impressionable nature of your people, 

expect I shall there encounter an ' in- would finish in a rupture, which I 

terpellation ' on the question which is should regret as much as you would." 

lust now so much agitated in the news- " In fact," said Benedetti. pausing 

papers, — the sale of the Grand Duchy and looking troubled, "a war would be 

of Luxembourg." inevitable after such a declaration.'' 

'• Yes, I know." said Benedetti, "and At this point in the conversation the 

it is just for that reason that the im- two diplomats left the garden and 

mediate communication of my despatch entered the street. '• Well. " said Count 

seems to me urgent." von Bismarck to Benedetti, " we must 

"Very well." said Bismarck, "but separate here, and 1 must now ask you, 

I must first communicate to you the ' Have you or have you not a despatch 

nature of tin' answer that I am goiu«' to hand me?" 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



155 



Benedetti bit his lips and reflected a 
few seconds. " No," he said. He put 
the despatch back into his pocket, and 
took leave of Bismarck, who went on to 
Parliament, and responded to the inter- 
pellation exactly as he told the French 
ambassador he should do. 

The result was that the Imperial Party 
in France presently found that it had 
been severely snubbed. The question of 
the Duchy of Luxembourg was submitted 
to the Conference of London, which de- 



clared the neutrality of the Grand Duchy, 
and decreed the demolition of its fortress. 
The policy of compensation, on which 
Napoleon had based so many hopes, had 
ended in a check to the power of France. 
The enemies of the country which Na- 
poleon had undertaken to govern alone 
had discovered the joints in his armor, 
the weak spot in his system of govern- 
ment, and no longer treated him as 
serious. 



[56 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN. 

Prevost-Paradol and liis Fatal Error. — A Journalist who Yielded to the Seductions of the Empire. 

The Work which he had Done Against Imperialism. — Danger of Kiots in 1870. — The Execution of 
Troppmann. — An Experience of the Secret Police. — Gustave Flourens. — The Arrest of Rochc- 
fort. — Flourens and His Insurrection. 



" TTTIIU.M the gods would destroy," 
» V says an ancient proverb, " they 
first make mad." After the fatal step 
which awakened the French Emperor 
to the folly of his attempted policy of 
'•territorial compensation" and greed, 
he entered upon a course of reckless 
adventure, now making promises of 
reform with such earnestness as to 
create new dupes, who in a few short 
months were bitterly to regret their 
mistake; now contradicting all that he 
had promised by violent measures of 
repression, worthy of the first days of 
his Imperial career. 

The mention of his dupes calls to 
mind the pathetic close of the life 
of M. Prevost-Paradol, who accepted 
otlice at the hands of Napoleon III., 
and who bad scarcely installed him- 
self in his position as French minister 
at Washington before his eyes were 
opened to the terrible nature of his 
error, and, his generous spirit torn 
witli anguish at the thought that he 
had unwittingly associated himself with 
those who were the betrayers of his 
country's honor and the destroyers of 
her peace, he ended his life with his 
own hands. Napoleon III.'s motives 
for sending M. Prevost-Paradol to the 
United States were by no means un- 
selfish. They formed a phase of the 
apologetic side of the Emperor's course 
during the last year of his reign. I was 
told, in 187(J, that M. Prevost-Paradol. 



who had heard that his distinguished 
talents were to be rewarded by some 
gift by the Imperial hand at the Tuile- 
ries, was advised by an old American 
resident in Paris to ask for the post at 
Washington, and to accept nothing else. 
Whether or not this were the origin 
of the appointment, the Emperor was 
enchanted in winning over to his side, 
even in outward seeming, one of the 
journalists who had been so stern and 
powerful an opponent of the Second 
Empire. M. Prevost-Paradol had a 
line record, to which a diplomatic ap- 
pointment under the Second Empire 
was rather a halting conclusion. He 
was one of those brilliant pupils of 
that famous Normal School from which 
came also Taine, About, and other 
Frenchmen of this generation, who have 
won and who worthily wear laurels. 
Academician at thirty-live ; director 
of one of the most powerful and in- 
fluential of French Liberal journals, 
he was a notable force for good dur- 
ing all the arid period after the coup 
d'Etat. He wrote constantly and ably 
in behalf of liberty of the press, of 
universal suffrage, and of social reform. 
He was, like so many French scholars, 
a little afraid of immediate contact 
with professional politicians and striv- 
ing radicals in the arena of universal 
suffrage ; and the adherents of the 
Empire were fond of saying that he was 
devoted to the cause of the Orleans 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



L57 



princes. That he had much sympathy 
for these gentlemen there is little doubt, 
but, had lie lived, it is probable that he 
would have rallied, like M. Thiers, to 
the Republic, and would have been a 
noble worker in the cause of liberty. 

After he had accepted office at the 
hands of Napoleon III. he wrote a note 
to the Orleans princes, which was in 
some sense an excuse for associating 
himself with the reigning powers. " I 
am tired." he said. " even disgusted with 
the press and its bitter polemics; yet I 
feel that I cannot leave the political 
arena, though I am anxious to get rid 
of its battles." His final conclusion was 
that he could find comfort and strength 
for future work in the temporary accept- 
ance of a diplomatic position. 

I met M. Pr6vost-Paradol for the first 
time shortly before his departure for the 
United States. He was the only French- 
man at a large party in which there were 
a dozen American politicians, all of 
whom went away with the idea that the 
new French minister was a remarkable 
man. Small in stature, with a face 
somewhat Jewish in type, lie was not 
impressive when silent, but he was mag- 
netic and inspiring in conversation, and 
became at once the central figure of the 
salon. He had the fascinating quality 
of making the person to whom he was 
speaking believe that he was especially 
charmed by him or her, and he was an 
excellent listener. His English was al- 
most faultless, although he spoke rapidly 
and nervously. After he lectured in 
Edinburgh the English papers were 
enthusiastic in their praise of his lin- 
guistic accomplishments. He had al- 
ways been a close student of English 
literature, had written essays on the 
Elizabethan period, and in his " Pages 
of Contemporary History " he has left 
many wise and just observations upon 



the great events and lessons of the 
American civil war. These "Pages" 
are sprightly volumes, made up of letters 
contributed to the old Sunday Courierof 
Paris, — a lively journal, suppressed, in 
18G"), on the ground that it had insulted 
the Emperor, but in reality because its 
politics were in all respects too liberal. 

What M. Prevost-Paradol had done 
when he was director of the old and 
famous Journal des lh'htit<< he did again, 
witli all the strength of his matured in- 
tellect, in the Sunday Courier. He wrote 
in a plain matter-of-fact style, in which 
there was yet a curious savor of Mon- 
taigne, and which was saturated with 
wit. Now and then a doctrine or an 
individual was quickly stabbed and bru- 
tally Hung aside, but the usual method of 
M. Paradol seemed to be worrying the 
life out of his enemies by the pricking 
of a million tiny blades. In the article 
which caused the suppression of the 
tSiiudoii ('mirier he compared France 
to a fine lady of the Court, who might 
choose her lover among the noblest and 
richest in the land, but who chose ignobly 
to fly with the stable-man. 

The contemptuous nature of this com- 
parison was quickly reported at the 
Tuileries, and M. Paradol went into re- 
tirement until his work, called " New 
France," was published, in 1868. In 
that book he urged upon the country 
the necessity of parliamentary govern- 
ment, with the greatest possible liberty, 
and made an earnest appeal for the re- 
establishment of justice in the courts of 
the land. Then the wave of circumstance 
carried him into the Corps Legidatif; 
and then came the disastrous mistake 
which cost him his life. 

He had been one of the first to point 
out the fallacy of the Mexican expedition 
and to prophesy its failure. He was de- 
lighted with the opportunity of visiting 



158 



EURO RE IN STORM AND CALM. 



America, and told me that he intended 
to visit all the important centres, and to 
study Republicanism where it was prac- 
tised without hindrance. But the crash 
came, and carried down the innocent 
with the guilty, and Francelost a thinker 
and a writer whom she could ill spare. 
As lie left the shores of his native land 
the echoes of the reproaches of his former 

comrades rang in his ears, and when lie 
reached Washington, and found that 
society welcomed him lint coldly, think- 
ing him a renegade, he was struck to the 
heart. The declaration of war against 
Germany completed his humiliation, and 
so maddened him that he shot himself ill 
the breast, in his own apartment, shortly 
after returning from a public reception. 
He was sincerely mourned by the Lib- 
erals in Paris, and by those who had 
been most bitter in their attacks upon 
him for yielding even in appearance to 
the seductions of the Empire. 

Ardent and enthusiastic scholars and 
men of letters, lil<e M. Prdvost-Paradol 
and like M. Flourens, — an episode in 
whose tragic history may be related 
here, — made the Imperial parly so un- 
comfortable that it fell into a subtle 
distrust, and from the time of Victor 
Noir's funeral down to the declaration 
of war there was scarcely a day when 
troops were not to be seen in some quar- 
ter of the capital, grimly awaiting the 
outbreak of a revolt. In January, Feb- 
ruary, and .March, of 1*7(1, after the 
pulse of the great city was still, late at 
night, long lines of troops moved quietly 
through the main avenues, and took up 
their station in the popular quarters, 
where the working-men were becoming 
more and more ripe for insurrection. 
When daylight came these long lines of 

men had disappeared. They came and 
went almost as silently as phantoms, 

and the mass of the population knew 



nothing about their promenades in the 
dark. On the great square of the Cha- 
teau d'Eau, which to-day is known as 
the Place de la. Pepubhque, a troop of 
cavalry made its appearance at sunset, 
and paraded hither and yon, breaking 
up any crouds which gathered at the 
entrance of the square, or which seemed 
disposed to move towards the sections 
of Belleville and La Villette, where the 
plebs was beginning to roar. The cav- 
alry frequently made a sudden raid upon 
the spectators, and those who were 
caught within the circle of horsemen 
wen- marched off to prison without any 
opportunity to explain themselves until 
the next day. Amusing adventures of 
this kind, tempered by no little discom- 
fort, occurred now and then to both 
ladies and gentlemen from beyond the 
seas, who were anxious to learn how 
Napoleon kept the wicked Parisians in 
order. Once, in February of 1*70, I 
saw a veritable stampede, hundreds of 
men, women, and children rushing fran- 
tically under the awning of a cafe, and 
crashing into the great plate-glass win- 
dows, cutting and bruising themselves, 
in their wild fear of a cavalry charge, 
which was conducted with more than 
usual vigor. People tolerated these 
things because the press could not report 
them ; or, if by chance if dared to print 
accounts of them, it could not comment 
upon them so as to awaken public opin- 
ion, and to arouse the masses to a full 
understanding of their degrading posi- 
tion. 

In those days, too, it was interesting 
to journey into Belleville and La Villette, 
taking good care to be furnished with 
papers of identification, and to attend 
the meetings held in garrets, in the lofts 
of manufactories, or sometimes in the 
cellars of cheap restaurants. The Em- 
pire objected in lulo to the public meet- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



159 



iug. It recognized in it the force which 
could overthrow the whole Imperial 
structure. So when the people began to 
clamor menacingly for the right to as- 
semble they were told that they could 
come together only in the most incon- 
venient and out-of-the-way places. On 
one occasion 1 attended a reunion, as it 
was called, in the garret of a huge ware- 
house at, La Villette. At the door of 
the building about fifty sergents de vilte, 
accompanied by their usual complement 
of mouchards, or private detectives, 
were compactly massed together; and 
no person entered without being very 
carefully inspected. Climbing some 
dirty and rickety stairs I came at last 
to the place of meeting, which was dimly 
lighted by wax candles, in lanterns 
hung from great beams, or placed on 
rude wooden boxes. Here, seated on 
benches, or squatted on the floor, or 
hanging like monkeys from the beams, 
were some two thousand workmen and 
street Arabs. In what might have been 
called the orchestra stalls, or the seats 
nearest the platform, there were a 
few intelligent, middle-aged artisans, 
accompanied by their wives and daugh- 
ters. On the platform sat Rochefort, 
with several resolute workmen, and one 
or two of his fellow-deputies grouped 
about him. At a little distance was 
seated the police commissioner, the 
representative of the central authority, 
and here and there, at the platform's 
side, appeared the three-cornered hats 
of the police. Outside could be heard 
the murmur of angry voices and the fa- 
miliar admonition of the Imperial police: 
" Circulez, Messieurs, circidez, s'il vous 
plait ! " 

The speeches were bold enough, and 
speakers like Rochefort and the other 
deputies were direct and telling in their 
attacks upon the government. But the 



workmen were usually very illogical and 
ridiculous in their vaporings. When the 
leading speakers of the evening became 
too violent, in the estimation of the 
worthy commissioner of police, that 
functionary pounded on the table, and 
invited the orator to be more careful. 
At such meetings, when the orator did 
not profit by this invitation, and the 
functionary was compelled to repeat it, 
the proceedings could be summarily ter- 
minated, and the police could expel the 
audience from the building. Once, at a 
meeting in Belleville, Rochefort began a 
brief, but very carefully prepared, speech, 
ending his first sentence with the word 
"Republican." The commissioner of 
police immediately admonished him; but 
it happened that Rochefort had written 
out his speech, and, being in those days 
unused to extempore speaking, he was 
compelled to read on, and soon came to 
the word "Republican" again. Where- 
upon the admonition was repeated, and 
the commissioner said, " Why should 
you compel me to break up your meet- 
ing? " This made Rochefort angry, and 
also made him eloquent. He turned 
upon the official and indulged in a 
brief philippic upon the tyranny of the 
Empire, bringing in with much skill 
the forbidden word in such a variety of 
forms and fashions that the police-officer 
at once declared the meeting adjourned 
sine die and left the hall. 

If under these circumstances speakers 
or audience had ventured to remain, thus 
_ defying the central authority, they would 
all have been subjected to criminal prose- 
cution, and a goodly number of them 
would have been imprisoned. 

The Empire feared for its safety even 
when crowds were brought together on 
such occasions as the execution of 
Troppmann. Those who went up to 
the gloomy square in front of the prison 



IliU 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



of L:i Boquette, oil that damp winter 
night in 1870 when the celebrated 
criminal lost his bead, will never forget 
the elaborate precautions which the 
authorities had taken for the suppres- 
sion of any riot that might occur. The 
sinister Troppmann w.ill be remembered 
as the man who slew a woman and her 
live children in a field in the neighbor- 
hood of Paris, and who had the pro- 
digious courage to bury them carefully 
in that Held, and then to plan and 
carry very far towards complete suc- 
cess a. scheme for escaping from the 
country to the United States. This 
live-fold assassination had so horrified 
the people of Paris that they cried out 
universally for the public execution of 
this malefactor, and it would have been 
more dangerous to have refused them 
the satisfaction of waiting in rows, from 
midnight till dawn, around the scaffold 
of expiation, than to run the risk of dis- 
persing them in case they started in 
procession for the Tuileries after the 
execution. 

So persistent were the rumors that the 
insurrection would break out that night 
that, in company with four or five other 
Americans, I went up to the prison of 
La Roquette, arriving there just as the 
clocks were striking midnight. One of 
the gentlemen in the party had procured 
from a functionary, with whom he was 
acquainted, a card, which would, he was 
assured, admit himself and friends inside 
the hollow square formed by the cavalry 
and the infantry, which kept the howling 
and surging mob, constantly increasing 
in numbers, at a reasonable distance 
from the scaffold. 

We had no sooner reached the outer 
line of this strange collection of hu- 
manity than we had a singular and 
striking illustration of the wonderful 
organization of the French secret police. 



My companion had been better served 
than he supposed. He had. as we after- 
wards learned, been given a document 
which entitled him to special favor from 
the mysterious and disguised agents of 
the Empire, who were always moving to 
and fro iu crowds. lie handed the little 
paper to the first uniformed policeman 
whom we encountered. This personage 
looked at it and was puzzled ; but it was 
instantly taken out of his hand in 
peremptory fashion by a red-nosed party, 
in a faded blue blouse and a dilapidated 
silk hat. Much to our astonishment 
this man, whom we expected to see 
taken into custody by the policeman, 
read the card, said, in a low voice. 
" Movton" returned us the " safe- 
conduct," and, with a little friendly ad- 
vice as to watching our pockets, pushed 
us on towards the inner circle. We had 
not gone twenty steps further before 
another seedy-looking man jostled 
against us, repeated the word " Mouton," 
and also the wholesome advice as to 
pockets. He went with us a few steps, 
when a consumptive individual, in white 
cotton blouse and trousers, took up the 
magic word, which he seemed bound to 
repeat when he saw the card, still held by 
my friend where it could be seen ; and we 
began to understand that w 7 e were being 
passed from agent to agent, each new 
helper being the obedient slave of our 
talisman. But candor compels me to 
state, that just as we were about to get 
into the square there was a great tumult 
in the outer lines of the mob, the cavalry 
turned about and prepared for a charge, 
and our consumptive friend iu white 
advised us to beat a retreat, and to take 
refuge in the upper story of some wine- 
shop. 

We took his advice, and soon found 
ourselves the occupants of a little room, 
from which, two or three hours later, as 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



161 




POLICE BREAKING UP A REPUBLICAN MEETING. 



the dull gray i>f morning slowly cume, dreds of the waiting men looked like 

we could discern the sinister form of the criminals of the worst sort. The women 

guillotine and the upturned, livid, dis- were loud-mouthed, and many of them 

torted, ugly faces of the thousands of indecent in their language : and when a 

men and women who longed to see new detachment of troops arrived it was 

Troppmann die. In truth it was a hailed with threats and shouts of deri- 

dreadful and repulsive spectacle, Hun- sion. 



Hi: 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



It was then the tradition that execu- 
tions should take place in France just at 
the dawn, as if society were ashamed of 
the vengeance which it took, and pre- 
ferred to have it before the respectable 
world were fairly awake and at its daily 
tasks and duties. The dawn was faint, 
and from our point, of vantage we could 
Imt dimlv discern the wretched murderer 
as he was brought out from the great 
central door of the prison, with the priesl 
holding the Crucifix at his side, and with 
an attendant train of physicians, drama- 
tists, and journalists, who wished to 
make a " study from nature," in the 
rear. The assassin, as he set his foot 
on the last step of the scaffold, was met 
and taken possession of by the execu- 
tioner and his aids, and of the rest we 
could see nothing save a shadowy 
struggle, which seemed to last for a 
horrible time, but which really was over 
in half a minute. We heard the dull 
thud of the knife. As it descended a 
yell of mingled triumph and execration 
went up from the crowd. The little 
troops of cavalry began to disperse the 
masses of pale and half-famished spec- 
tators. A black wagon, escorted by 
gendarmes, was driven rapidly up to the 
rear of the scaffold. A rough wooden 
box was placed in it, and then the 
wagon and its escort sd out at full trot 

for the " cemetery of the condemned." 

We remained in our perch in the wine- 
shop until most of the people had left 
the square, and then we went down to 
view the scaffold, in front of which we 
found our consumptive friend, in the 
white garments, engaged in conversation 
with an odd-looking Herculean man. 
di'essed in black clothes, with a shiny 
Mack hat surmounting his rugged head. 
•• l)i«l he carry himself well?" said the 
police-officer to this gigantic personage. 
"At first," was the answer; "but 



when he was placed on the plank he 
tried to bite. Then it was soon over ; " 
and the robust man drew a cigarette 
from his pocket, lighted it daintily with 
a wax match, and turned his back upon us. 

'• Von have been," said our late ac- 
quaintance, turning upon us with a sin- 
ister smile, '• lucky or unlucky, as von 
choose to consider it ; " and, pointing to 
the large man, added, "you have just 
been face to face with the executioner." 

No riot came that night ; the stones of 
La Roquette were stained with none but 
criminal's blood, and for some time after- 
wards the atmosphereof Paris was peace- 
ful ; but when the obedient Corps Ligis- 
hiiif had sanctioned the prosecution of 
Rochefort, because of his revolutionary 
language, the agitation was extreme, 
and Flourens, whom I have mentioned, 
was the leader in a riot of very respecta- 
ble proportions. Rochefort was arrested 
one February evening, just as lie was 
entering a hall where several thousands 
of people were waiting to hear him 
speak, and he was carried off to St. 
Pelagic, the prison in which political of- 
fenders were locked up, so quietly that 
there was no attempt at rescue made. 
But when the audience learned that he 
had been taken prisoner the excitement 
knew no hounds. 

Gustave Flourens, who had been one 
of the most daring leaders in the mani- 
festation on the day of Victor Xoir's 
funeral, may fairly be said to have in- 
augurated the attack on the Empire ; for, 
no sooner had a workman cried out, 
■' Rochefort is arrested ; they are going 
to assassinate him ! " than he leaped Up 
from his chair on to the platform, and 
drew a revolver, pointed it at the police 
commissioner's head, and said. " You 
are my prisoner. Come with me ; we will 
do von no harm. I proclaim the insur- 
rection." Two or three shots were fired 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



1(53 



in the air, and Flourens, followed by 
three or lour hundred shouting and 
frenzied workmen, went down into the 
street, forcing the unlucky police commis- 
sioner ahead of him by occasional sugges- 
tive hints with the barrel of his revolver. 
The people at once began to build 
barricades, and to prepare for a gen- 
eral resistance on the great boulevards 
which radiate from the Belleville quar- 
ter. Flourens gave his prisoner the 
'• key of the fields," as the French saj', 
and told him to go and sin no more. 



Flourens was one of those brave and 
hardy spirits, who. like Prevost-Para- 

dol, suit the action to the word. He was 
the son of the distinguished professor of 
natural history at the College de France, 
and until lie was thirty devoted himself 
with the greatest enthusiasm to the 
studies in which his father hail won an 
European reputation. When the father 
dieil he designated the son as his suc- 
cessor, and appealed to the Imperial 
minister to confirm his choice ; but the 
younger Flourens had, like other young 




DISPERSING A PARISIAN UIOT. 



Then he began to search the quarter for 
anus ; but before he succeeded in organ- 
izing a well-equipped force the police 
came in crowds, followed by a. few de- 
tachments of infantry. The overturned 
omnibuses, half-smashed cabs, and piles 
of paving-stones, were of little avail, 
and the effort of Flourens turned out 
an inglorious failure. Flourens himself 
took refuge in the house of a friend, 
where he was concealed forty days, after 
which he escaped to England, which 
■country refused to give him up when he 
was asked for as culpable of participa- 
tion in the conspiracy for assassinating 
the Emperor. 



men of Liberal and Republican sympa- 
thies, been placed on the black-list of 
the Em] lire, and he waited in vain for 
the succession to his father's post. He 
even wrote directly to the Emperor, say- 
ing that he felt it a sacred duty to carry 
out the work which had fallen from his 
father's hands; but Napoleon said he 
could not interfere in the appointments 
of his ministers. Young Flourens then 
deliberately gave up his scientific career, 
and went heart and soul into the Liberal 
cause. He had to go to Belgium even 
to publish his scientific works, as they 
were too deeply tinged with Liberalism to 
be acceptable to the Empire. Then he 



If. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



made a long tour in the Orient, took part 
in (he Cretan insurrection in 1866, had 
many a wild adventure in Greece and 
Crete, gol into a prison in Italy for a 
political escapade, and finally came back 
to Paris, to plunge into radical journal- 
ism, and at last to lead the insurrection 
which was so quickly suppressed, 

After Flourens had left his English 
refuge he was once more in danger. In 
Athens he was tracked by the Imperial 
police, and the French Embassy de- 
manded his extradition. The govern- 
ment was about to accord it when the 
people of Athens rose and insisted that 
he should not be given up. He came 
back to Paris during the September revo- 
lution, at a time when his countrymen 
were unduly sensitive on the subject of 
foreign spies, and suddenly found him- 
self the inmate of a Republican prison, — 
he who had done so much for Republicans 



and the Republic. He was not liberated 
or freed from the accusation of being a 
Prussian spy until after the Empire had 
been destroyed and the government of 
National Defence established. 

Flourens died, as he had lived, a pas- 
sionate, but ill-advised and reckless, 
apostle of liberty. He was one of the 
earliest promoters of the Commune, and 
was in the riot when Paris narrowly 
escaped the declaration of the Com- 
munist insurrection, on the 31st of Oc- 
tober, 1870. He perished, as will be 
seen farther on, in one of the wild skir- 
mishes around Paris, in the first days of 
the great struggle between Paris and 
Versailles, in 1871. 

His end was as tragic, but not as 
pitiful, as that of l'revost-Paradol. He 
died for his opinions ; not because 
he had momentarily wavered in his 
opinions. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



165 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. 

The Intrigue of Marshal Prim and Bismarck. — The Events which Led to the Declaration of War. — The 
Protestof M. Thiers. — Personal Reminiscences of the Excitement in Paris. — Anecdotes of the Un- 
readiness of the Second Empire. — Genera] Ducrot and His Troubles in Strasbourg. — The Corruption 
and Incapacity of the French Quartermaster's Department. — No Rations. — No Ammunition. 



IT was the cold wind blowing from 
the Pyrenees which finally upset the 
card-house of the Empire. 

The French say that the candidateship 
of the Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern, 
a relative of the King of Prussia, and 
nothing more than a major in the first 
regiment of King William's Foot-Guards, 
for the unoccupied throne of Spain, was 
the result of an intrigue arranged by 
Marshal Prim, who had been desperately 
angered against Napoleon III., because 
that sovereign had upset his ambitious 
projects about Mexico ; and by Bis- 
marck, " who thus found the means of 
isolating France and surrounding her 
with enemies, or at least discovered the 
pretext tor a war the almost certain 
result of which his genius enabled him to 
foresee." 

This is not a history, and I do not 
propose to dwell upon the recital, already 
published hundreds of times, of the long 
series of negotiations which led the 
French up to the fatal declaration of 
war. The military party in France 
came to the front at once, and in thun- 
derous tones demanded that the Empire 
should assert its dignity, and should put 
aside the political scheme which had 
been undertaken without the advice and 
consent of France. It is possible that 
Napoleon III. would have been glad to 
hold in cheek the passions which his 
previous vacillating policy had done so 
much to unchain ; for it would appear 



that he had resumed his negotiations 
with Prussia in pursuit of his policy of 
compensation and greed ; and at the very 
moment when both countries were trem- 
bling on the verge of hostilities the 
draft of a secret treaty between France 
and Prussia was undergoing revision. 
By this treaty it seems to have been 
stipulated that Napoleon III. should 
recognize and allow all the Prussian 
acquisitions which were the outcome of 
the war with Austria ; that the King of 
Prussia, on his part, should assist France 
to acquire Luxembourg, — the Luxem- 
bourg which Bismarck had so cleverly 
saved from the hands of the French only 
two or three years before ; that, in case 
Napoleon III. should get or conquer 
Belgium, the King of Prussia should 
give armed assistance to France against 
any other power that might declare war 
against her in such a case ; and, finally, 
that the two powers should conclude an 
offensive and defensive alliance. 

The effect of the publication of this 
document by M. Benedetti. the unlucky 
ambassador who was the representative 
of France in Prussia in July, 1870, was 
rather amusing. Although your Euro- 
pean diplomat neither disdains nor dreads 
a white lie, there was no one bold enough 
to deny outright the authenticity of the 
project of treaty ; and the partisans of 
the Empire, when called upon to explain, 
said that M. Benedetti had drawn up 
the paper, but had done so at the die- 



hit; 



EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 



tation of Count von Bismarck. That 
personage contented himself with re- 
marking that sonic sort of an agreement 
had to be made with France, ns she 
incessantly asked for compensation for 
not interfering to prevent the plans of 
Prussia from being realized. 

Here we have as good proof as we 
need that we are not falsely accusing 
the Emperor of the French of following 
the policy of compensation, and of hav- 
ing been cleverly duped by the people 
with whom he wished to make a profit- 
able compromise. Both Bismarck and 
Benedetti said, and have always main- 
tained, that neither Napoleon nor King 
William were willing to sanction the 
treaty which their subordinates had 
drafted; but the fact that the draft 
was made by two such responsible 
parties as the German Chancellor and 
the French Envoy is enough to show 
that there was Royal and Imperial in- 
tention at some time or other to put it 
into force. 

It was not until the end of the month 
of June, 1870, that the negotiations 
relative to the candidateship of Prince 
Leopold to the Spanish throne were 
concluded 1 > v the Spanish government, 
Count von Bismarck, the King of 
Prussia, and Prince Leopold himself. 
Marshal Prim, in conversation with 
the French ambassador at Madrid, 
took care to place the affair in the 
most disadvantageous light for France, 
and maliciously added that the scheme 
must he carried through, because Spain 
could nowhere else find such an accept- 
able candidate. A German on the 
throne of Spain! Tin' very idea was 
distasteful to all parties in Fiance, but 
its effect upon the Imperialists was 
like that of a red cloak before the eyes 
of a bull. Cautious and experienced 
diplomats, like M. Thiers, would have 



succeeded in putting Marshal Prim, 
who was not a man of mighty mould, 
back in his place, and in securing from 
the Spanish and German governments 
the withdrawal of a project to which 
France, as a great power, did not. feel 
like giving her consent. But from the 
moment of the proposition of the can- 
didateship the Imperial party seems 
to have thrown all prudence to the 
winds, and to have acted in the most 
reckless fashion. The simile of the red 
cloak and the bull is eminently proper 
here. 

All the supporters of the Empire 
seemed, in the eves of calm and 
impartial observers, to be given over 
to madness. For those who knew the 
gigantic military preparations in which 
Prussia had been engaged for so many 
years, the declaration of Emile Ollivier, 
in the tribune of the <'<ir/ix L&gislatif, 
that he and his colleagues accepted the 
great responsibility of a German war 
••with light hearts," caused a shudder 
• if disgust. There was but one thing 
I., suppose in extenuation of the con- 
duct of these men who took into their 
hands the lives and fortunes of a great 
nation, and that was that they thor- 
oughly believed in the duration of the 
old anil traditional military strength 
of France; that, although they were 
sensible of the corruption and rust 
which had clone such deadly work 
under the Empire, they felt that the 
nation in arms would be victorious over 
anv opponents, however formidable. 

Put. even if they believed this, they 
were culpable, lor they could only have 
had such robust confidence in their 
country because they had persistently 
neglected the study of the progress of 
Europe in their generation. Shut into 
the petty circle of the Second Empire, 
which made the collection of news and 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



167 



its free publication almost a criminal 
offence, these responsible ministers, 
these influential statesmen, had vague 
notions of the outside world. The 
Duke de Gramont, in the numerous 
speeches which he made previous to 
the declaration of war, adopted the 
tone of one conscious of an overpower- 
ing force behind him. The Prussians 
themselves were staggered by this tre- 
mendous assumption of importance. 
A highly cultivated and sincere French 
official, who was in Germany at the 
outbreak of the war, has left on record 
his impression of the period of doubt 
through which Germany passed when 
the nation saw that war with France 
was inevitable. Was it possible that 
they had made a mistake, and that 
the old triumphant French spirit would 
prove as irresistible as of old? 

M. Jules Simon, and many others of 
equal importance and influence in the 
ranks of the moderate Republicans, say 
that General Prim imagined the Candi- 
da I eship of Prince Leopold von Hohen- 
zollern, because Napoleon III. had used 
such vigorous efforts to prevent the elec- 
tion of the Due de Montpensier to the 
throne of Spain. " Of course," says M. 
Simon, " the Emperor of the French was 
bound by his position to exclude a Bour- 
bon from the Spanish throne ; but by his 
opposition he occasioned the Ilohenzol- 
lern intrigue, and thus was the cause of 
all our misfortunes." 

Put the grave and great accusation 
against the Second Empire is that it 
made war in petulance and recklessness 
when it might have preserved peace, ami 
that it declared war without being in any 
maimer prepared to carry on a campaign. 
The man who had said at Bordeaux 
that the Empire meant peace deliberately 
cast the nation into a conflict with a 
powerful enemy. There was not even 



any enthusiasm throughout the country 
in favor of a German war ; the nation, 
bowed under the Imperial yoke, blindly 
accepted the issue of the sword because 
the Empire dictated that it should do so. 
The prefects of the various departments 
had been consulted, and their answers, 
favorable to a conflict, were published. 
But they did not reflect public opinion, 
and many of the officials timidly ex- 
pressed their belief that the " agricultu- 
ral populations were in favor of peace." 
Garnier-Pages, who represented the sen- 
timent of the Republican Opposition 
in the Corps Ltgislatif, once cried out 
when the subject of war was under dis- 
cussion : ■■ It is these dynastic questions 
which are always troubling the peace of 
Europe. As for the nations, they only 
ask to be let alone, that they may 
respect, aid, and love each other." But 
the Duke de Gramont, with his diplomatic 
twaddle and his long sentences about the 
dignity of France and her duty to her 
sister nation, overwhelmed the Republi- 
can protests against the struggle which 
was to lie productive of such infinite 
suffering. 

There was one voice, however, that no 
platitudes of ministers and no threats of 
Imperial disfavor could drown, and that 
was the piping voice of the valiant M. 
Thiers, so soon to lie called to the helm of 
state, and so earnestly patriotic that he 
dared to speak out all that was in his 
heart. On the afternoon of a stormy de- 
bate, when all the Imperial clique was wild 
for immediate war, after he had done 
justice with his keen satire to the auda- 
cious declarations of Emile Ollivier and 
the Duke de Gramont : and after he had 
spoken for a long time in the midst of 
insults and outcries from those who 
dreaded lest he might interrupt the 
march of events, he concluded his speech 
by saying that he was ready to vote with 



168 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

the government all necessary means categorically refused to do anything of 
whenever war should definitely be de- the kind, considering that he had fully 
flared, but he must first know the de- accomplished his duty. In the after- 
spatches upon which the declaration of noon M. Benedetti returned and de- 
war was to be founded. " The Cham- manded a new audience, but this time 
ber," he said, "may do as it likes. I King "William announced that he should 
can foresee what it is likely to do: but, refuse to receive him "if it were t» 
as for myself, I must decline to partici- resume the subject broached in the 
pate in the declaration of a war which morning;" but he sent his aide-de-camp 
is so little justified." to say that he should be happy to see 

The mob, which had a short lime M. Benedetti if he desired to make him 

before been ready to inarch against the a personal visit. 

Second Empire, now joined forces with M. Emile Ollivier, in the session of 

it, and on the night of (he 15th of June, the ('or/is Ldgislatif at which war was 

when the speech which contained the declared, made a great deal out of this 

virtual declaration of war was knowu, incident, in insisting thai the German 

crowds of half-drunken men appeared press had taken it up, and placed France 

before the house of M. Thiers, and in- and her diplomatic dignity in the most 

dulged in a hostile manifestation. But humiliating light ; in short, that all 

lie was not without his supporters, ami Europe was laughing at tliem, and that 

as he returned that evening from the such an affront could not be tolerated. 

Corps Legislatif he was cheered all the Emile Ollivier was certainly justified 

way from tin 1 Place de la Concorde to the in feeling offended at the tone of the 

Rue Royale, because lie had dared to tell German and continental press generally 

the truth to the Empire, and to say that in its comments upon the Benedetti 

the dignity of the nation could be main- incident, 
taiued without plunging into war. But the sneers and the laughter were 

M. Thiers was right in saying that not for fiance ; they were for the band 
the declaration of hostilities was scarcely of adventurers who had taken posses- 
justifiable, for, although the French am- sion a score of years before, and who 
bassador had secured a complete diplo- were now reaping the fruits of their 
matic victory over the Spanish and folly and presumption. 
Prussian intriguers, the Imperial Minis- So from the little cloud, no bigger 
try was not satisfied, and insisted that than :i man's hand, which arose out of 
M. Benedetti should carry his demands General Prim's back parlor, came the 
still further, and right up to the danger wind and storm which made Europe 
point. On the 13th of July M. Bene- tremble to its base. The appearance of 
detti therefore presented himself at Paris during the days between the 15th 
King William's residence at Ems, where of July and the 19th, on which date 
the old monarch was taking his usual the declaration of war. couched in i\\v. 
midsummer repose, and begged the most polished diplomatic language, was 
king to authorize him to convince the handed to Prussia, was extremely curious. 
French government that, in case the The usual phenomena attendant upon the 
Hohenzollern project should be brought sudden awakening of a nation to the 
up again, he would interpose his royal knowledge that it must instantly prepare 
authority to quash it. The old king for defence and offence were visible in 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



W.) 



camp, in court, and on the street. The 
Emperor shut himself up mornings in 
the Palace of Saint-Cloud, and was re- 
ported to lie organizing the forthcoming 
campaign with great skill and energy. 
That which first impressed me, as a 
spectator, was the paucity in number 
of the troops which came and went, and 
the confusion apparent in all the branches 
of the administration. A visit to the 
Ministry of War was like a promenade 
into Bedlam. Here was no silenl disci- 
pline. The streets of the capitol at 
night were paraded by long processions 
of workmen, in white and blue blouses, 
and by the numerous collection of 
vagabonds who always come to the sur- 
face in abnormal times; all this riff- 
raff singing patriotic songs in the 
loudest voices, brawling and manifesting 
under the balconies of unpopular depu- 
ties, threatening the Republican Opposi- 
tion with dire consequences, because it 
had dared to hesitate on the threshold 
of war. 

The Imperial Guard went out at night 
under the glare of torch and gas-light, 
and to the music of splendid bands, and 
this handsomely equipped corps made a 
vast impression on the populace. "To 
Berlin ! To Berlin ! " was shouted on all 
sides. Enthusiastic citizens seated under 
the cafe awnings embraced each other, 
and promised themselves the pleasure 
of visiting the great Prussian capital 
when the French armies should be there. 
Little boys shouted insults for the enemy 
beyond the frontier. Innocent strangers 
were hustled and accused of being Ger- 
mans ; a*d, when they denied the harsh 
impeachment, were insulted because they 
were not Germans. Popular passion was 
at high-water mark ; the Emperor was a 
great man ; he had done no wrong. lie 
would lead his armies to glory. The 
Republicans were milksops, and the Prus- 



sians were mere food for French bayo- 
nets. It was an intoxicating moment. 
The masses of the Parisians-fancied that 
the Empire must have at its disposition 
vast military resources; and they slept 
as comfortably after as before the decla- 
ration of war. 

The Internationale showed its ugly head 
in the midst of the tumult. No doubt 
there was in many breasts the hope that 
the Commune might thin lie declared, 
and the great municipal insurrection 
might lie successfully launched on the 
stormy waves of popular excitement. 
In the theatres the actors were called 
upon to recite patriotic poems; and at 
the opera M. Faure was obliged to sing 
Alfred de Musset's biting and satiric 
verses against the Prussians. Here 
and there the Marseillaise, so long for- 
gotten, burst out; and the Imperial 
Police were frightened at the energy with 
which it was sung. They dreaded the 
hymn of Rouget de I'Isle, because, 
though it meant a menace to the Teutonic 
enemy, there was in it also a threat lor 
tyrants at home. In the Imperial Senate 
the declaration of war had been saluted 
with cheers, although the Senators knew 
that the Empire had no ally, and could 
count on none at the outbreak of hos- 
tilities. 

The utter lack of preparation for war 
on the part of the Second Empire has 
now become historical ; but few writers 
who have traced the course of the war 
of 1870-1871 have given half the facts 
concerning it. On the 20th of July, at 
ten minutes to ten in the morning, and 
less than twenty-four hours after the 
presentation of the official note declaring 
war by the representative of France at 
Berlin, the Quartermaster General at 
Metz telegraphed to the Minister of War 
in Paris: "There is in Metz neither 
sugar, nor coffee, nor rice, nor brandy, 



170 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

nor salt; little pork, and small biscuit, and insufficient. In the Strasbourg 
Send in haste a million rations byway arsenal there were two thousand cannon, 
of Thionville." On the 21st of July the but only four hundred or five hundred 
General commanding the Second Corps which were fit to serve. There were can- 
telegraphed to Paris: "The D4p6t non-shot or, rather, great stone bullets, 
is sending enormous packages of maps, which dated from the time of Louis 
which are useless for the moment. XIV. There were guns, but half of 
We have not a single map of the French them were Hint locks. As to the camp 
frontier, and this is the one. which we equipage, everything was in the utmostdis- 
speeiallv need." On the 21st of July order. Even the most necessary articles 
General Michel telegraphed from Bel fort were lacking, such as the halters for 
to the Minister of War in l'aris : "Just picketing horses. An army corps of 
arrived at Belfort ; cannot find my thirty thousand men needed one hundred 
brigade; cannot find a Division Gen- and forty-four wagons in its train. 
eral ; what must I do? I do not know Strasbourg could furnish but eighteen, 
where my regiments are." On the Even in 1869 the population of Stras- 
24th of July the General commanding bourg, which had heard of the investiga- 
te Fourth Corps telegraphed : " Fourth lions of General Ducrot, was alarmed at 
Corps has neither canteens, nor ambu- the poorness of its defence ; and the sub- 
lances, not baggage-wagons : Toul, ject was eagerly discussed. The quar- 
garrison town, is completely bare of ter-inaster twice wrote to the Minister 
everything." On the same day the of War. at the request of the Stras- 
Quartermaster of the Third Corps tele- bourg population, and indicated that 
graphed: "Our corps leaves Met/, to- something must be done to strengthen 
morrow. I have neither hospital tenders, the town, which was in such an exposed 
nor workmen, nor ambulances, caissons, situation. In the ambulance department 
nor tield ovens, nor scales for weighing there was not one-tenth of the material 
the forage. 1 beg Your Excellency to which would be necessary in war time, 
take me out of the scrape into which I The negligence so manifest at Stras- 
seem to have got." bourg was visible everywhere after the 

On the 25th the sub-quartermaster outbreak of the war. M. de Seganville, 

telegraphed from Mezieres: ■•There is quartermaster of Marshal MacMahon's 

neither biscuit nor pork in the fortresses army corps, was literally in despair 

of Mezieres or Sedan." On the 27th because of the condition in which the 

the Major-General telegraphed to the administration left him. " I have noth- 

Minister of War from Met/. : "The de- ing," he said, "for my forage depart- 

taehments joining the army here con- incut or for my hospitals." 

tinue to arrive without cartridges and Marshal Kiel wasdeeply humiliated by 

without camp materials!" the deplorable condition of the French 

General Ducrot was Division Com- army, and especially of its quarter- 
mander at Strasbourg, both before ami master's department. Marshal Niel was 
after Sadowa. lie made continual reports one of the few French soldiers who had 
to the Minister of War concerning the un- taken into account the change that two 
satisfactory condition of the arsenal successive wars had brought about in 
under his c mand. The ambulance Germany, and the dread silent organ- 
material, as at Met/., was incomplete ization that that country had been 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



171 



undergoing for fifty years. The reforms 
which he began in France were wise ; 
and, had they been fulfilled, would have 
placed the country upon au excellent de- 
fensive footing. In 1868 the new military 
law which had been prepared by him was 
voted, and its execution was begun. 
By the terms of that law the armed force 
of France was composed of the active, 
the reserve, the Mobile National Guard, 
and the navy. The reserve had for its 
mission the reinforcement of the active 
army, the occupation of fortresses, and 
furnishing garrison troops; while the 
National Guard Mobile, as it came to be 
called during the war, was to fill up 
gaps in garrisons on the national soil, 
and to form a substantial reserve. The 
principle of obligatory service, just now 
so firmly established under the Republic, 
was considerably extended by this law. 
Substitutes, however, were still allowed : 
lint bounties were suppressed. The 
duration of service in the active army 
was brought up to nine years ; five under 
the flag, and four in the reserve. The 
men of this latter category were to be 
called up only in case of war, and by 
Imperial decree. The old division of 
the annual contingent into a first and 
second portion was preserved. Under 
Marshal Niel's reform law the French 
army would, with the calling up of the 
contingent of 1875, have a war effective 
of eight hundred thousand men ; and in 
the same period the National Guard 
Mobile would have reached the figure of 
five hundred thousand men. But death 
came to take Marshal Niel in the midst 
of his preparations for reorganization ; 
and the country was left without his 
advice and counsel in the terrible 
moments of 1870. 

It is said that the plans of the pro- 
jected campaign in Prussia, which were 
being elaborated by the Emperor and his 



councillors, were changed three times, 
after the most herculean labors had 
been performed on each plan, in order 
that the Empress's pet project of hav- 
ing General Frossard in a prominent 
post could be carried out. Marshal 
Le Bceuf continued to tell the country 
that it was ready for war, that its sol- 
diers did not lack a gaiter-button or a 
strap. But the solemn truth became 
daily more and more evident. The Em- 
pire could not put in line an effective force 
equal to more than a third of the German 
numbers. Out of four hundred and sev- 
enteen thousand soldiers of the Guard 
Mobile only one hundred thousand were 
armed and organized. Half of the guns 
in the soldiers' hands were muzzle-load- 
ing. Although the Field Artillery had the 
material necessary for live hundred lot- 
teries, there were men and horses for 
"lily one hundred and fifty-four batter- 
ies. At the end of .Inly there were but 
six hundred and twenty-four cannon, in- 
cluding the famous mitrailleuses, ready to 
enter into the campaign. Of the three 
million three hundred and fifty thousand 
guns which were on the artillery regis- 
ters a great number were, on the open- 
ing of hostilities, undergoing repairs. 
The arming and assembling of the Mo- 
biles in the provinces was done in the 
most desultory and incomplete fashion. 
A French writer has drawn a curious 
picture of the departure of the 10th 
Regiment of Cher, which left Bourges 
on the 22d of September to go up to 
Orleans, and enter immediately into a 
campaign against the magnificently 
equipped regiments of Germans. " Not 
only," he says, "was this regiment 
badly equipped, but most of the soldiers. 
taken suddenly from the fields and away 
from their farms, were entirely unarmed. 
Some few of them had guns, which had 
been brought in great haste from estab- 



EUROPE I.Y STORM AND CALM. 



lishments at which they were undergoing 
repairs." •• At the battle of St. Quen- 
tin," says another writer, •■ the battal- 
ions of a legion of Mobiles were deci- 
mated by shell and shot; but they did 
not see a single enemy, the Prus- 
sians being carefully concealed on the 
surrounding woody heights, aud the 
French soldiers had, for their defence, 
guns carrying only two hundred yards." 
General Ducrot arrived with his divis- 
ion :it the outset of the campaign in a 
village and found a captain of the chas- 
seurs a pied representing the whole 
quartermaster's department. This cap- 
tain was alone, without money, without 
employes, without carriages, without 
workmen, without a single kilogramme 
of bread or meat. The troops ate up 
their reserve rations; then the general 
sent for the single representative of the 
quartermaster. This personam' con- 
tented himself with saying, in reply to 
Genera] Ducrot's remark that his sol- 
diers had had nothing to eat, "Impos- 
sible ! 1 have just been buying some 
things." General Ducrot, thoroughly 
angry, cried out, " My soldiers must 
have something to eat. 1 don't care what 
vou were buying or going to buy; but 
von must forthwith produce bread and 
meat." Two hours after the fright- 
ened inteudant sent in thirty-six bakers. 
These bakers managed to find some 
flour in the villages, and to get together 
some bread. Then General Ducrot 
hunted out some butchers in the regi- 
ments, got them to kill cattle taken at 
random in the neighboring stables, and 
so managed to get food for his hungry 
men. There were plenty of regiments 
which had no blankets; hundreds upon 
hundreds of the men in the reserve had 
never taken a chassepot in their hands, 
or ever seen one until they were called 
under tire. There were two mitrailleuse 



batteries at a certain point on the fron- 
tier at the beginning of the campaign ; 
but there was only a single officer in the 
whole neighborhood who Tcneio /mm tn 

use litem. 

The catalogue of tin' shortcomings of 
the military department of the Empire is 
so lone- that I may only touch upon it 
here. After the first battles on the 
frontier I had occasion to go from 
Frankfort-on-the-Main to Strasbourg on 
an excursion which 1 made in search of 
a military pass, — an indispensable docu- 
ment in those strange days of August, 
1870. My companions in the compart- 
ment of the railway carriage were two 
respectable gentlemen, who looked like 
Germans; but I presently discovered 
that they were citizens of Strasbourg, 
and I could not help overhearing their 
conversation. One of them was reciting 
with great animation the cause which 
led. in his opinion, to the French de- 
feat atWoerth,or Reichsehoffen, as the 
French call it. He laid the whole fault 
on the quartermasters' departments. 
"The officers," lie said, "act as if 
they were at a picnic. They pitch 
their tents, and the soldiers spread their 
tables with costly linen, with glass ware, 
and with innumerable bottles of wine. 
In the morning the soldier finds that he 
has no coffee to drink, and that his soup 

is not made. Where are our old generals 
who used to say: ' lie soldat ne peut 
rien faire s'?7 //'" pas mange la soupe ' ' " 
— (The soldier is good for nothing until 
he has swallowed his soup. ) 

The quartermaster of the Sixth Corps 
is on record as having written: "The 
chief quartermaster has asked me for 
four hundred thousand rations of biscuit 
and for field provisions. I have not a 
single ration of biscuit nor any field pro- 
visions." The Emperor, as soon as he 
got to the front, was much distressed 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



1 73 



and, uo doubt, greatly alarmed at the 
lack of food and anus. He wrote to the 
Minister of War: "I sec that we lack 
bread and biscuit for the troops." But 
that was not all. They lacked caissons, 
canteens, means of transport, revolvers 
in the arsenals, cartridges for the mi- 
trailleuses, surgeons for men and horses : 
everything, in short. 

Meantime the magnificence of the Im- 
perial household was by no means to be 
neglected, even in the field. The fol- 
lowing plan, drawn up at the palace of 
St. Cloud, the 3d of July, 1870, three or 
four days before the departure of the 
Emperor, by the Adjutant-General of the 
Palace, will give an idea of the manner 
in which Napoleon III. expected to 
traverse Germany on his triumphal 
march : — 

" Maison de l'Empereur. 
" Service of the Grand Marshal. 
" Notes on the Service of .l/.l/. les Aides- 
de-camp and Orderlies near the 
Emperor in tin- Field. 

" The aides-de-camp and orderlies will 
serve in alternate order, beginning by 
priority of age and rank. 

" There must be always two tables, 
whether at a bivouac or during long 
stays, so that the Emperor may have 



the means of inviting few or many people 
to dine, as he pleases. 

" At the tabic of the Emperor will sit 
the aide-de-camp who is on duty and the 
first groom, if the Emperor orders it 
thus. The second table shall lie pre- 
sided over by the adjutant-general ; and 
there shall also sit MM. lis aides-de- 
camp, the orderlies, the grooms, the 
officers attached to the aides-de-camp, 
and. if necessary, the secretaries of the 
Cabinet. 

"The valets de chambre will bivouac 
or camp in shelter tents, carried in the 
wagons of His Majesty. 

"The baggage of the Emperor shall 
be escorted by a brigadier and six gen- 
erals of the squadron of the guard. 

" There shall lie allowed, on entering 
the campaign, to MM. les aides-de-camp, 
designated to accompany the Emperor, 
20,000 francs, and to the orderlies, 
15,0(10 francs. The first shall have four 
saddle-horses ; and the latter three. 
These gentlemen can each take with 
them a valet de chambre." 

Then follows an interminable list of 
the directions as to the Imperial kitcheu, 
the wardrobe, the bedding, etc., all con- 
trasting rather singularly with the sim- 
plicity which Napoleon I. often affected 
when he was on active service. 



174 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. 



Departure of the Emperor for the War. — Volcanic Throes Renewed.— Movements of the Internationale 
— The German Workingmen's Address. —Tin- Imperial Court at Ulois. — Foreshadowing of the Com- 
mune. — jM. Rothan's Revelations. —Bismarck and His Views of the War. — Alarm of the German 
People. — Fears of a French Invasion.— Emile < lllivier's Account of the Manner in which Hostilities 
ivere Decided upon. — M. Rothau and the Duke de Gramont. —The French Minister of War is Sur- 
prised. — Marshal Le Boeuf's Deceptions. 



ALTH( >U( ! 1 1 the Emperor went away 
to the war with the air of one who 
was about to conquer his foes without 
difficulty, his heart, was rilled with many 
misgivings, for he knew that he left a 
powerful enemy behind him. The vol- 
canic throes wen' once more clearly per- 
ceptible throughout the whole of France. 
The nation, which professed to believe 
itself upon the eve of a vast and unparal- 
leled military triumph, was torn by in- 
ternal dissension, and was on the very 
verge of civil war. The repeated mani- 
festations against the Empire, in Febru- 
ary, in March, and in May, 1870, had 
given the mysterious and audacious In- 
ternational Society of Working-men fresh 
courage. This new society knew that it 
had only to show its head to be struck 
down relentlessly by the Empire, which, 
while it professed most liberal sentiments 
with regard to the working-men, did noth- 
ing to ameliorate their spiritual condition. 
The strikes at the great metallic establish- 
ment of Creuzot, which were under the 
immediate direction of M. Schneider, one 
of the most important members of the 
Imperialist party in Paris, had been put 
down, and had awakened discontent and 
open aggression among the working-men 
in such great industrial centres as Rou- 
baix and Amiens. In dune of 1870 
thirty-eight members of the association, 
accused of being members of a secret 
society, which was an unpardonable 



offence under the Empire, were tried and 
sentenced to various terms of imprison- 
ment. The places of those who went 
to till the prisons were rapidly taken by 
Others who had sworn eternal hostility to 

the Empire, and not only to it. but to the 
whole organization of existing society. 
It now appeared as if the Empire must 
take upon its shoulders the burden of a 
great invasion, for no Frenchman fancied 
for tin instant that a war would be any- 
thing but tin invasion of places beyond 
the Rhine. Even the new apostles of 
the Internationale boldly showed them- 
selves, and grouped about them :dl the 
discontented and dangerous in the ranks 
of the Radical Republicans. The Inter- 
nationale rather inconsistently declared 
against the war, which it was not sorry 
to see begun, tis it hoped that by embar- 
rassing the Empire it might enable the 
workmen to carry out their purpose of 
complete emancipation. An address was 
issued by a group of French workmen, 
disclaiming till national hatred and re- 
pelling the ideti of the necessity for a 
hostile invasion of a neighboring country. 
To this little group of toilers came, 
as powerful aid, men of Inch social 
standing and intelligence, like M. A.ge- 
nor de Gasparin and Edgar Quinet. 

These eminent thinkers held a meet- 
ing, tit Belleville, to protest against the 
declaration of war; and as members 
of the International League of Peace 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



V 



might Lave had some influence under a 
free gi ivernment. But freedom of speech 
within the boundary of France was not 
yet won ; and the furious Imperialist war 
party stigmatized as Prussians all those 
who ventured to hint that there was 
really no adequate provocation to war. 

To the address of the French work- 
men and to the other humanitarian utter- 
ances from France there was :i strong and 
manly response from beyond the Rhine. 
The International Association of Work- 
ing-men in Berlin signed a letter, which 
is worthy of being copied here, as tending 
to show how easily European wars could 
be prevented if it were not for the excess 
of power placed in the hands of the chiefs 
of the royal dynasties : — 

"To the Working-men of France: 
We also wish peace, labor, and liberty. 
This is why we associate ourselves 
heartily to your protest. Inspired with 
ardent enthusiasm against all obstacles 
placed in the way of our peaceful devel- 
opment, and especially against the sa\ age 
practice of war. animated only by frater- 
nal sentiments, we join hands with you. 
and we swear to you. like men of honor, 
who do not know how to lie. that we find 
in our hearts not the least national hatred ; 
that we are submitting merely to force, 
and enter constrained and compelled 
into the bauds of soldiers which are 
about to spread misery and ruin through 
the peaceful fields of our countries. 

"We also, like yourselves, are men of 
combat and action; but we wish to com- 
bat by the pacific use of all our forces 
for the good of our kindled, for the 
benefit of humanity. We wish to com- 
bat for liberty, equality, and fraternity ; 
to combat against the despotism of 
tyrants, who oppress sacred liberty, 
against falsehood and perfidy, from what- 
ever quarter they may come. We 
solemnly promise you that neither the 



roll of drums nor the thunder of camion, 
nor victory, nor defeat, shall turn us 
from our work for the union of the Pro- 
letariat of all countries. We also, like 
yourselves, no longer need any frontiers, 
because we are on both sides of the 
Rhine. In old Europe, as in young 
America, we have our brethren, with 
whom we are ready to go to the death 
for the aim of our efforts, — the Social 
Republic. Long live peace, labor, and 
liberty! " 

It is not difficult to discern in the 
frank and courageous utterance of this 
proclamation a distinct advance in the 
character of the International Society of 
yVorking-men from the time when, in 
lsr>7, it published the twaddle fromwhieh 
I have given extracts in a preceding 
chapter. But the golden dream of the 
enthusiastic laborers on both sides of the 
Rhine was not destined to be fulfilled. 
The Proletariat was fated to indulge in 
the wildest and vilest excesses in France, 
and to be led away info the most danger- 
ous follies of socialism; while the Ger- 
mans were constrained, by the exigencies 
of national unity and the iron military 
discipline ami despotism which hail been 
inaugurated in their country, to put off 
their part of the great International Revo- 
lution and to fight their brethren with 
all the energy that they possessed. That 
there were scores of thousands of men 
in the German army who abominated 
the war into which they were thrust, and 
who were as ripe for a socialist revo- 
lution as were the wildest members of 
the Paris Commune, there can be no pos- 
sible doubt. I myself heard a Prussian 
soldier say, at Ecouen, on the day after 
the capitulation of Paris, and alluding to 
the lengthv campaign which now seemed 
drawing to a close: "I wish that the 
accursed swindle were over, and that I 
had never been drawn into it." 



176 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



On the day, too, before the declara- 
tion of war was officially notified to 
Prussia by the confldeut and jubilant 
war party in France, a little procession 
of prisoners was brought up to the bar 
of the High Court of Justice, convened 
at Blois, for the express purpose of 
stamping out with one vigorous move- 
ment the leaders of the working-men's 
opposition to the Empire. The indict- 
ment against the majority of these men 
was for participating in a conspiracy, 
having for its end an attempt against the 
safety of the .State and against the life 
of the Emperor. Among the members 
of the counsel for the defence were 
such distinguished Republicans as Em- 
manuel Arago and Floquet. One of 
the persons accused was Megy, who had 
been the first Frenchman in the later 
days of the Empire to protest against 
the violation of his domicile by police 
agents, who could briny; against, him no 
accusation except that he was suspected 
of conspiracy. Megy had shot and 
killed a police ngentwho was forcing his 
way into his room, and desired to excul- 
pate himself on the theory that individual 
liberty must he respected, and that the 
members of the dominant party must 
be taught that in undertaking tyrannical 
measures thev take their lives iii their 
hands. The other prisoners were men 
who had participated in the various 
attempts at insurrection in the spring 
and early summer, and they were no 
little amazed at seeing as the principal 
witness for the government one of the 
men whom thev had supposed to he their 
firmest ally, almost a leader, and who 
was nothing but a police spy. All the 
prisoners were aggressive and violent in 
their demeanor. The Imperialist magis- 
trates began to realize for the fust time 
that the rt'yiiw of terror was oxer. 
Ferre. accused of conspiracy, declined 



to answer the remarks addressed him 
by the presiding judge, and said: " I 
simply ask you to give the order to the 
gendarmes to take me hack to my 
prison." This unwonted insolence so 
startled the magistrate that he told the 
prisoner to si( down and stop talk- 
ing; whereupon Ferre said: " You have 
the force now. That is all right. Use 
it. But when we get it look out for 
yourselves. 1 am a Republican. " The 
sinister words of Ferre were well re- 
membered during the anguish of the 
Commune, for he was one of its pro- 
moters and the prominent member of its 
executive force. After hearing this last 
remark the judge ordered Ferre to 
stand up and to be interrogated once 

v ; but the prisoner refused. "Then 

we shall Compel you." said the judge. 

•• If I come here again," answered Ferre, 

•• some one will have to carry me." 
Despite this violent attitude Ferre was 

acquitted of conspiracy, of which for 
that matter he was innocent enough. 
Megy and many others were sentenced 
to twenty years of hard labor each ; and 
men whose only offence had been an 
incautious participation in a secret so- 
ciety were sentenced to three, five, ten, 
or fifteen years of imprisonment. But 
less than two months afterwards the 
majority of them were free: for the 
Empire had passed away like a vision 
of the night, leaving the country to 
suffer from the effects of the evil pas- 
sions which the Imperial tyramn had 
roused, and which, when they found 
that they could not wreak their vengeance 
upon the fallen tyrant, turned it upon 
the innocent. 

No journal in Paris, or in any part 
of France, ventured more than the 
mildest comments upon this whole- 
sale trial and the savage sentences which 
elided it. And meantime the attention 



EUROPE IN .STORM AND CALM. 



177 



of the public was thoroughly engrossed 
with the procession towards the Irontier. 
Rarely has a great war been entered 
upon with more apparent gayety on both 
sides, until the miserable poverty ami 
neglect of the quartermasters' depart- 
ments were exposed. The French sol- 
diers manifested all the traditional gayety 
of the Gauls, and the Germans, on their 
part, came up to the Rhine and began 
to climb the great hills of the Palatinate 
as if they were on a pleasure excursion. 
Every day the people of Paris were 
treated to a bombastic manifesto from 
the Imperial Ministry. Emile Ollivier, 
in describing to a friend the manner 
in which the army of Napoleon would 
vanquish the Prussians, says: "We 
shall blow them away." The Empress 
Eugenie, who had when the war was 
first declared said, "This war is my 
war, and I must have it," inspired the 
whole Court with her brilliant pictures 
of the approaching success of the Na- 
poleonic arms. But there were not 
wanting men who were serving the Im- 
perial cause, who had clear vision, and 
whose hearts were tilled with sorrow as 
they noted the approach of the catas- 
trophe. M. Rothan, who was Consul of 
the French Empire at Hamburg at the 
outbreak of the war, has left on record 
an interesting statement of the illusions 
of his own government, illusions which 
he tried in vain to correct, and for 
venturing to doubt which he narrowly 
escaped the charge of lack of patriotism. 
It is to M. Rothan that we are indebted 
for one of the clearest and most concise 
accounts of the situation in North Ger- 
many in the early days of July. He 
thinks that Prince Bismarck was for a 
time after the question of the candi- 
dateship of Prince von Hoheuzollern 
came up, in a very dangerous position, 
and that he might easily have been 



precipitated from its high place. His 
policy was the subjectof the bitterest, criti- 
cism, even among his own diplomatic 
agents. " Bismarck could count,'' says 
M. Rothan, " neither on the assistance 
of Wurtemburg, nor that of Bavaria. If 
Prussia, during the first week of the dif- 
ficulty, from the 3d to the 11th of July, 
had raised at Stuttgart or .Munich the 
question of casus foederis, she would have 
encountered a peremptory refusal. The 
neutrality of the southern kingdoms 
would have taken from the war its na- 
tional character, ami would have main- 
tained the load open between France and 
Austria; that would have meant one hun- 
dredand fifty thousand less combatants in 
the ranks of our enemies. Bismarck had 
never been caught in a more desperate 
situation. It needed his cool audacity. all 
the resources of his great mind, and the 
good-luck which has presided over his 
career, to get him out of his difficulty. 
He knew how to conjure the danger, and 
to beat us on the ground where we ought 
to have triumphed, by simply keeping 
his presence of mind. lie speculated on 
our passions, on our maladresse, on the 
position of tin' Empire, on the chances 
of a revolution in France, lie did not 
ignore the causes which hail led the Im- 
perial Ministry to adopt such a bitter 
tone with regard to the Spanish incident. 
He knew that the < 'orps Leyidatif was 
torn by parliamentary ami dynastic in- 
trigues ; that the Extreme Right wanted 
at any price to upset the Cabinet, and 
that to carry out its purpose it had re- 
solved to give to the candidateship of 
Prince Hohenzollern the proportions of 
a national question. He also knew of 
the hopes that were cherished at the 
Court of the French sovereign, where a 
large party flattered itself that a fortu- 
nate war would consolidate the dynasty . 
and would permit the repeal of the liberal 



17* EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

concessions made by the Emperor." Prussian army would be surprised before 

This, if must be remembered, is writ- it was concentrated, 

ten by a member of the Imperial Party, M. Emile Ollivier, in conversation 

who thus sets the seal upon the incoru- with a political friend, at the close of 

petenee and folly of his political asso- the war, gave the following account of 

ciates the manner in which hostilities were 

From his corner of observation, at decided upon. " I was sitting in my 

Varzin, Count von Bismarck followed office," he said, " occupied in drawing up 

all the phases of the crisis, and carefully the conciliatory declaration which we 

watched the pretext which should bring had agreed on in the Council of Minis- 

him upon the scene. " He wanted war," ters after the withdrawal of the Prince 

says M. Rothau, ••hut he did not like to von Hohenzollern front his project; and 

assume the responsibility of it. lie so I intended to read this document to the 

carefully manoeuvred as to bestow the' Chamber. I felt glad that we had known 

odium of the provocation upon us. While how to avoid a conflict, which had been 

he sent one envoy to Ems to tell the King so imminent, and was congratulating mv- 

of the irritation of public opinion, and self on our success, when the Duke de 

the indignation of the military party iii Gramont, very much agitated, came 

Prussia, because of the King's excessive into the room. He held in his hand 

mildness towards France, he was acting various documents, and among others the 

with great vigor at Vienna, Florence, telegraphic despatch that Count von 

and especially at Si. Petersburg. He Bismarck had sent to all his agents, to 

corresponded constantly with Von Moltke, inform him that the King, after hav- 

who was already preparing in his custom- ing been insulted by the French am- 

ary mystery and silence the mobilization bassador, had refused to receive him. 

of the German armies." 'This,' said the Duke, "is a blow in the 

M. Rothau points out a fact, which face of France given by Prussia. I 

all journalists, and other observers who shall resign my portfolio sooner than 

chanced to he either in Germany or in suffer such an outrage."' — "I." said 

France at the outbreak of tin' war, did M. Ollivier. " was anxious for peace. I 

not fail to notice, and that is, that the worked ardently for its maintenance 

Germans were very much alarmed at the without cessation. I hail, in harmony 

idea of a French invasion, expected it, with the Emperor, who used the whole 

and made their greatest efforts with a weight of his authority, striven against 

view of having the first battles fought extreme measures, and here I found my- 

as far as possible from the Rhine. But self constantly confronted with the 

they did not for an instant seem to hope necessity of war because of this grave 

that these first battles would be fought provocation." M. Ollivier is renowned 

only when the German army had got past for his delicate artifice, and the ingenious 

the Fiench frontier. Before the rupture manner in which he endeavored in this 

of diplomatic relations there was a rumor conversation to cast back upon Prussia 

in northern Germany thai a French army the weight of the responsibility of declar- 

corps was marching upon Luxembourg, ing war will not escape attention, 

and that the French avant-garde had Shortly after this conversation with 

already entered the Palatinate. There the Duke de Gramont and the repro- 

was a universally expressed fear that the duction of Bismarck's despatch in the 



EUROPE IN STORM AXU CALM. 



17i» 



papers, the French Council of Ministers 
was convoked in haste ; in such haste. 
in fact, that two of the ministers did 
not get their letters of convocation in 
time to be present. The Emperor 
opened the session by saying thai he 
was obliged to recognize the fact that 
he was a constitutional sovereign, '-it 
is my duty." he said, "to submit to 
your wisdom and patriotism, to decide 
what course we shall take in view of 
the incidents we have just heard about." 
On the motion of Marshal Le Boeuf 
it was decided that the reserve of 
(he army should then he called up. 
"When they heard this in Germany," 
writes M. Rothan, " there was the live- 
liest apprehension all along lie- line. 
No one doubted that our preparations 
were all made for the instant invasion 
■ ■i Southern Germany, for the immedi- 
ate occupation of the Grand Duchy of 
Baden, anil it was expected that this 
would have a weighty effect. The 
Germans also thought thai a French 
squadron would shortly appear off 
Copenhagen, with at least thirty thou- 
sand men ready for landing." lie 
wrote at once a long despatch to the 
Duke de Gramont, giving the state 
of public opinion in Germany, and 
closed his letter with these significant 
words: ■• The newspapers say that 
Germany is now at last agreed; that 
the Germans are all united from the 
sea to the Alps. The King will leave 
for the army as the protector of the 
Federation of the North, but he will 
come back as Emperor of Germany." 
The Duke de Gramont must have 
mused upon these words at frequent 
intervals a few months later. On the 
19th of July, at seven o'clock in the 
evening, the secretary of the Senate of 
Hamburg gave M. Rothan his pass- 
ports, and he at once left the territory 



of the Seven States, to which he had 
been accredited. " I left Germany," he 
said, " in arms ; grave, solemn, full of 
hate for us, quite understanding that 
the supreme struggle was at hand, yet 
ready for all sacrifices. At Paris 1 
found only tumultuous scenes, drunken 
hands of workmen giving themselves up 
to patriotic saturnalia. It was a poignant 
contrast." lie went at once to the Duke 
de Gramont and asked for an inter- 
view. '' I thought." he said, "that 
the government must he anxious to 
confer with ils accredited agents arriv- 
ing from Germany, and to get at their 
latest impressions; but I was mistaken. 
The Emperor, worn down by sickness, 
and overwhelmed with cares, gave no 
audiences. I found in the waiting-rooms 
of the Tuileries only a few orderlies, 
lazy and spiritless; they were playing 
at cards, while the sovereign, opposed 
to the war. given up to fatalism, 
yielded to the sombre presentiments 
which a few days afterwards were re- 
fleeted in his melancholy proclamation." 
When M. Rothan saw the Duke de 
Gramont he found him very haughty 
and disposed to lie cheerful, lie was 
loud, in his praise of the French troops. 
He foresaw the complete crushing of 
Prussia, and drew a picture of her im- 
ploring peace after French victories. He 
said. ■• We shall have more allies than 
we shall know what to do with ; we 
must have our elbows free at the mo- 
ment of peace." But to another French 
diplomat he said: " You are wrong to 
suppose that we are anxious for the 
neutrality of the Southern German 
kingdoms. We do not want it. It 
would hinder our military operations. 
We must have the plains of the Palat- 
inate to develop our armies in." These 
ambassadors from the front, as they 
might be justly called, tried to point 



ISO EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 

on i to tin- members of the ministry to the cabinet of Marshal Le Bcauf. 
the magnificent military preparations " What impression do you bring from 
of Germany ami the defects of the Germany ?" said the Marshal. "Avery 
French organization. " Do you not sad one. I fear that the Imperial gov- 
see," llu'v said. " that the calculations ernmeut lias been badly inspired, and 
of our stalls are not based on anything that, in provoking Prussia, it has played 
real, and that we shall be obliged to the game of Count von Bismarck." — •• I 
modify our plan of campaign? We shall do not ask you for your remarks on the 
have to divide our forces instead of government's policy. I am not a poli- 
contentrating them. We shall per- tician. Kindly tell me what you know 
haps have to take to the defensive in- about the German army," said the Mar- 
stead of developing our armies on the shal. " 1 merely want to know what 
plains of the Palatinate, as the Duke de you know about the mobilization and the 
Gramont wishes to do." formation of those arruies." — " It seemed 
M.Rothan records with some bitterness certain," answered M. Rothan, "two 
that after dancing attendance upon one days ago, when 1 left Hamburg, that on 
of the important personages for two the '_'-"ith of July all the infantry, and on 
days, when every hour was as precious the "_'7th all the cavalry reserve would 
as an ordinary week, the minister gave have joined their corps; and on the 2d 
him two minutes, and said : " If you of August, at the latest, the whole army 
wish to continue the conversation — I would be concentrated. I will add, that 
have no time to talk now — come to the the Minister of Prussia in Paris. Baron 
theatre this evening, and seethe Grande Werther, announced to the crowd, as I 
Dltchesse. We can finish what you have went through the railway station in Han- 
to say there." M. Rothan , several days over, that he was in a position to say 
alter war was declared, sick at heart at that Germany had much the advance, 
the spectacle of such negligence and and that she would surprise the French 
recklessness, betook himself to the Mill- army in process of formation." 
istrv of War, where he round General On hearing this statement, made with 
Lebrun, ami tried to tell him of the the resolute courage of one who knew 
rapid advance of the German armies, what he was talking about ami fully 
lie reminded the Genera] that Prussia appreciated its gravity, Marshal Le 
had, since the campaign in 1866 in Bo- Boeuf's face turned quite pale. He rose 

hernia, changed the principle of its orig- and stepped back a few steps, like e 

inal plan of mobilization, and would awakening from a dream. " It was," 
infallibly be ready for vigorous action in said M. Rothan, in describing the inter- 
nine days after the declaration of war. view, "as if he felt that this unexpected 
General Lebrun was unwilling to admit news had decided his destiny." The nest 
that tin' Germans could possibly move questions that he asked were falter- 
more rapidly than the French armies, ing, and denoted a profound mental ilis- 
However, after observing the extreme turbance. Still he said he could believe 
agitation of M. Rothan, and the enipha- no such rapid mobilization of the enemy's 
sis with which he dwelt upon the (lancer, forces. lie had declared, before an sis- 
he said : " We will go and see the Minis- semblage of his colleagues, that Franco 
ter of War, and you may tell him what had a clear advance of eight days over 
you think lit." So they were admitted Prussia, and it would seem as if he really 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



1*1 



believed that the Prussian army would 
not he able to enter into campaign lie- 
fore twenty-one days, instead of nine. 
which M. Rothan set as the latest date, 
and which was, in fact, all that was 
required. There were but few in the 
Imperial party who, like M. Rothan, 
refused to allow their pride to interfere 
with their reason. Ollivier, Lebrnn, 
Le Bceuf, the Duke de Gramont, all 
persisted to the last in disbelieving in the 
constant reports of the wonderful Prus- 
sian organization ; and the overweening 
confidence and blindness of the party are 
slimmed up in the almost pathetic out- 
burst of the Empress when she was told 
that Napoleon was a prisoner : "You 
lie ! he is dead." 

Marshal Le Boeuf was doomed to many 
deceptions at the outset of the war. 
It is told of him that on the evening 
after the battle of Saarbruck he sent for 
one of the citizens of Metz, who was 
somewhat renowned in the country for 
his topographical knowledge, and asked 
him if he knew the lay of the lands where 
Rhenish Bavaria touched the French fron- 
tier. The citizen answered modestly that 
he did. " Then I am going to confide to 
you a great secret," said Marshal Le 
Bceuf. " You will only have to keep it for 



two or three days, for by that time my 
operation will be completed. You must 
know, then, that to-morrow morning 1 
am going to send the Frossard corps to 
take Sarre and Sarrelouis. Then I am 
going to send MacMahon and de Failly 
to fall upon Landau, and the junction 
of the two army corps will be operated 
in the space between Landau and Sarre- 
louis. I should like to know from you 
if there is a military route practicable 
between the two military towns." The 
citizen of Metz stared at the Marshal 
• if France. " Monsieur le Marechal," 
he said, " this junction is absolutely im- 
possible under tin' conditions which you 
indicate. Between Landau and Sarre- 
louis there is a regular little Switzerland, 
a mass of mountains, which a handful 
of men could defend against the most 
powerful army in the world." The Mar- 
shal bit his lips. " But there is a rail- 
way in that direction and a canal.'" he 
said. '• There is, indeed, a railway ; but 
it passes through nine tunnels, and thn e 
pounds of powder could break up com- 
munication there in three hours." So 
Marshal Le Bceuf said nothing more 
about his plan; and this was the man 
who at that time held in his hands the 
destinies of the French arm v. 



182 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETEEN. 

The Race for the Rhine. — Von MoltUe's Mysterious Journeys before the War. — Captain Samuel's Tele- 
gram. — The German Advance. — Scenes along the Historic Stream. — At Cohlentz. — At Mayencc. 

— The Road to Wiesbaden. —The Crown Prince :ct Speyer. — In the ITalz. — The Bavarian Troops. 

- Their Appearance.- Tlie Frighl of the Inhabitants. 

IT is not wonderful that the French often enough been rehearsed by all the 

Minister of War turned pale, and directors of it, and every step of which 

stepped hark as if he had been looking was prepared with most consummate 

into his own grave, when M. Rothan knowledge. 

told him, with the emphasis of convic- As a proof of the thoroughness with 

I ii hi , that the Germans had the advance which the' German advance was arranged 

in the mobilization of their army. The the following telegram, received at the 

curious and almost ferocious indisposition French Ministry of War. from Forbach, 

of the French military authorities to on the 9th of April, 1868, is worth 

allow the correspondents of newspapers quoting: — 

to accompany their troops was prompted "To the Minister of War: Since 
by the tear of indiscreet exposure of Monday I have been following General 
their plan for falling upon the roads down von Moltke, who is visiting^the frontier 
to the Rhine, and making all speed for the of Fiance and si inlying the positions, 
historic stream in time to check the Ger- On Monday I came up to him at May- 
man advance. Both nations were for a ence ; on Tuesday lie stopped at Birken- 
t'ew terrible, momentous days engaged feld, and took notes on the heights near 
in a race for the river, and for the roads the ruins of the old castle. He slept 
and mountain passes opening upon it. the same day at Saarbruck ; he there 
But while poor equipments, lack of took the defensive position of the rail- 
geographical knowledge, and the irrepara- way station and the canal. Yesterday 
hie and criminal povertj of the quarter- he was at Sarrelouis, where he is still 
master's department, at every step re- staying. This morning, in spite of the 
larded ami crippled the French, the frightful weather, he went out in a 
Germans may be said to have been carriage to visit the neighboring heights, 
moved, despite themselves, resistlessly 1 suppose, according to what I hear, 
forward to the defence of their own, and that he is going this eveuing or to-mor- 
Ihc invasion of the enemy's, country by row to Treves, and that he will go down 
the operation of a machine which had the Moselle. Shall I continue to follow 
been completely planned, thoroughly him up? Answer at the telegraphic 
tried, and which was absolutely perfect, bureau of Forbach. 
In fact, the Germans, in executing their "Captain Samuel." 
tremendous forward march up the rugged Answer from the Ministry of War: 
spurs of the mountains, ami through the " Follow him." 

deep vales towards the French frontier, This was but one of the many visits 

wei\' but performing a feat which had that the venerable Von Moltke made- to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



is;} 



the positions along the road into France ; 
and in 1869 he and his staff made a 
grand military promenade, without any 
concealment whatever, up to the very 
gates of the Alsatia which they were 
destined so speedily and SO easily to 
conquer. 

General Ducrol appears to have been 
the only man on the French side who 
studied the enemy's country with the 
same care and minute vigilance mani- 
fested by the general staff of the Prus- 
sian army. Many a time had he been 
through the Grand Duchy of Baden and 
all the country between the Vosges and 
the Black Forest, disguised as a peas- 
ant, now on foot, now driving a country 
wagon, examining at his leisure the con- 
struction of the forts which he per- 
haps hoped one day to take. General 
Ducrot was forewarned, but he could 
not make himself heard at the Imperial 
( lourt. 

The Countess de Pourtales, a brill- 
iant lady, descended from a French 
Protestant family which had to quit 
France on the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, and who was residing in Prussia 
shortly before the war, visited General 
Ducrot in 1868, and said to him, with the 
greatest energy and indignation : '• ( Gen- 
eral, the Germans are deceiving ns, and 
hope to surprise us unarmed. In 
public they talk of peace ami of their 
desire to live on good terms witli ns ; 
but when they are among themselves 
they speak with a scornful air, and say, 
'Don't you see that events are moving 
rapidly forward, and that nothing can 
hinder the ddnonevient?' They laugh at 
our government, our army, our Garde 
Mobile, our ministers, the Emperor ami 
the Empress, and pretend that before 
lone- Fiance will be a second Spain. 
Would you believe that the minister of 
the household of the King dared to tell 



me that before eighteen months had 
passed over our heads our Alsatia would 
be incorporated into Germany?" 

General Ducrot was so much impressed 
with this lady's disclosures that he 
begged her to go to Compiegne and tell 
her story; but at the Ministry of War 
the General's revelations were looked 
upon coldly. It was too late for the 
Empire to profit by a warning. 

The mention of this ( ountess de 
Pourtales brings to mind a striking- 
anecdote which illustrates the mutability 
of human fortune. During the summer 
of 1873 this lady went to Chiselhurst, in 
England, to visit the exiled Emperor and 
Empress. While she was conversing 
with them some one brought to the 
Emperor a photograph of a. beautiful 
castle in Scotland, with hunting and fish- 
ing grounds, ami everything desirable 
for a rural retreat attached to it. The 
Empress was delighted with the picture, 
and spoke of leasing the property for the 
Prince Imperial. '• What are you think- 
ing of, Eugenie?" said the Emperor; 
•• they want thirty thousand francs for the 
castle ! " — " You are right/' said the ex- 
Empress, ••and I have not even a lied 
that I can call my own ! " 

When war was declared Marshal 
MacMahon was at Strasbourg, witli what 
was known as the African army. Gen- 
eral Frossard was at Saint Avoid, with 
an army brought together hastily at (he 
camp of Chalons. Marshal Bazaine 
was at. Metz with the army of Lyons. 
General de Failly, who was a veritable 
hero at the battle of Solferino, and held 
out with one brigade against three Aus- 
trian brigades, but who utterly failed to 
accomplish anything in the combat of 
1870, was at the fortress of Bitche. 
Marshal Canrobert was organizing the 
Sixth corns at Chalons ; and the brave 
General Douay the Seventh at Belfort. 



184 EUROPE IN STORM AXP CALM. 

The Imperial Guard was at Boulay, under opposed to this rather meagre array 
General Bourbaki. of French military talent. M. Jules 
Passing rapidly in review these men Claretie, in his History of the Revolution 
who had attained the dazzling positions of of 1870-71, says: " The adversaries of 
Marshals of France, and their colleagues, these generals, some of whom were 
ii is difficult t<> find any one except already troubled before they were in 
MacMahon who was entitled to the name battle, and who marched to the combat 
of a competent soldier. MacMahon, with a cumbersome train of baggage- 
Duke of Magenta, was a true warrior, wagons, carriages, panniers of wine and 
and the very first battle in which he fruit, like the generals of the time of 
engaged, in 1870, showed that hail he Louis XV., — their adversaries were 
had men enough, and men who were well those rnde mathematicians, inflexible 
enough fed and equipped, it would have calculators, patient, yet violent, war- 
gone hard with the Germans, magnifi- riors, like Count von Moltke, a cold 
cently managed and superior in numbers strategist, with a geometer's glance, a 
as they were, lie hail been a soldier thinker rather than a soldier; Prince 
from his earliest youth. There was in Friedrich Karl, a kind of ferocious 
his character a bit of the old Irish dash Blucher, a furious sabre-swinger; old 
and energy of the MacMahons, who Steinmetz, the conqueror of Machod and 
accompanied James II. in exile, into Skalitz, the ancienl enemy of Waterloo; 
France, and it was manifest in all Manteuffel, who, in 1865, had, crossing 
that he did during the campaign of the Eider and tin' Elbe, begun a cam- 
conquest in Algeria, and in the Crimean paigu against Hanover allied to Austria ; 
war, where he had a most dangerous Von Werder, harsh and sinister, the 
position in the grand and last attack future bombarder of Strasbourg. All 
on the Malakoff Tower. ''Here I am, these men were strong in their hate and 
and lure I remain," became famous in their jealousy, strong, above all, he- 
words in France, and MacMahon's fame cause of the military organization which 

extended far beyond the I ndaries of his allowed them to launch their army corps 

own country. He was, at forty-four years forward, swift as thought ; to bring the 
of age, a division general who had seen fighters in railway carriages on to the 
twenty-seven years of active service, battle-field, and by the same train to 
Had the Empire had a dozen men like transport the wounded from the hattle- 
him it might have turned the current field to the hospital. They were strong, 
of fate for the moment. Bazaine hut did I say? — hut because of our feeble- 
showed the already confessed weakness ness. They brought patience, coolness, 
of his character in his conduct at .Mel/.. principle, against fever, anxiety, and 
General Frossard was chiefly noted for disorder. Those who know that victory 
having been the Prince Imperial's pre- depends upon the quartermaster's de- 
ceptor. It was expected that he would partment more than upon anything else, 
get the baton of a marshal at the first ami upon those engineers of the Held of 
battle in which he participated ; hut. as carnage who are called officers of the 
it chanced, that first battle was the dis- general staff, were overwhelmed with 
astrous defeat, at Forbach. patriotic anguish when they measured. 
Let us see what an enlightened and not the courage, — France is always sure 
patriotic Frenchman says of the Germans tc have her heroes, — but the organ- 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



L85 



ization and the mechanism of the two 

armies." 

Never, should I live a hundred years, 
could I forget my impressions on ar- 
riving on the Rhine while the mobiliza- 
tion movement of the German armies 
was at its height. There ran be noth- 
ing more impressive than a nation in 
arms. Tin- aggregation of strong, reso- 
lute, handsomely equipped men is stu- 
pefying. One begins to think dure 
are millions where he only sees thou- 
sands. The eve is but slowly trained 
to the appreciation of numbers. The 
uprising of the whole of Germany was 
an electric surprise to all Europe, and 
it is not astonishing that I was over- 
whelmed by what I saw. From the 
Belgian frontier to Cologne I was com- 
pelled to take a military train, all civil- 
ians being declared contraband, and 
being already looked upon with suspicion 
and contempt. A man out of uniform 
in Germany was a thing to smile at, or 
to lie pitiful over. IT a stranger he was 
looked at askance. Hut no one troubled 
the observer during those' few days of 
striving for the advantage. The soldiers 
were too busy with themselves, and the 
civilians were too much engaged in 
gazing at them, to worry foreigners. 
From Cologne I followed the wave of 
soldiery to Coblentz, where there was 
naturally a great concentration of troops, 
with a view to the guarding of the Mo- 
selle valley. Beer and wine played 
their accustomed rdle. Rigorous as is 
the German discipline on the march, 
and in the enemy's country, there was 
not much show of it among those thou- 
sands upon thousands of lusty young 
men, who were packed as neatly as figs 
in a box into the snug railway carriages. 
At Bonn, the old university town, there 
were at least five hundred men on the 
railway platform, each one with a bottle 



of heel' under each arm, and such 
scrambling as ensued among the sol- 
diers I have rarely seen. 

At Remagen a few hilarious old gen- 
tlemen came with packets of sweet 
cakes, and beer-bottles innumerable, and 
as the train moved away sail"; patri- 
otic songs in cracked voices. Here 
and there a man hade his wife and 

children g 1-1 > v, and got quietly into 

the train, fitting into the place prepared 
for him in advance. The Reserves, 
coinine; in from the country-side, made 
the air ring with their songs, and cheer 
after cheer was heard from the wayside 
as the train went by. 

If the hungry French soldiers on the 
other side of the frontier could have 
seen the spectacle which I saw at 
Coblentz they would have wept with 
vexation. The provision magazines were 
crammed, and long trains of forage 
wagons werecomingin in the early morn- 
ing from the other side of the Rhine. The 
Prussian system for the transportation 
of supplies was put lo a seven.' test here, 
and proved amply sufficient. As soon 
as the movement of, or concentration of, 
troops, on the frontier began, the fann- 
ers in all the country along the Hi I 

march were notified that they must 
transport a certain amount of supplies 
to a given point. Each fanner owns, 
according to his circumstances, one or 
two forage wagons, all built very much 
alike, and subject at any moment to the 
government call. The burgomaster of a 
certain district receives notice from the 
army head-quarters that so many sup- 
plies must be at a certain point at a 
given time ; ami he gets them there. 
knowing full well that if lie docs not the 
consequences will be extremely unpleas- 
ant. 

Of course the situation would have 
been greatly changed could a French 



IcSb EUROPE [N STORM AND CALM. 

army of the old revolutionary or Repub- as if going to a wedding. Tho new- 

lican type liave gi rolling and plunging comers from a village in the back 

down the Moselle valley, living on plun- country usually made a round of the 
dcr, and frightening the farmers and shops, to buy a few things lacking for 
burghers into instant submission. But their outfit. Every second man was 
the Germaus were pretty well assured smoking a long porcelain pipe, and 
that there was no danger of an extended every third officer certainly wore spec- 
raid in the direction of the Rhine, tacles. The fever of national patriot- 
Cologne, at the time of my visit, was ism found its vent in the singing of 
the head-quarters of the general com- such songs as Die Wacht mu RJu in. 
manding the Seventh, Eighth, and There was little cheering, a good deal 
Eleventh corps of the Prussian army, of laughter, and liberal beer. 
This command was one of the most From Mayeuce I crossed the river and 
extensive in the country ; the Seventh attempted to visit Wiesbaden, where a 
corps occupying the whole of West- few of the annual French visitors were 
phalia, including Dusseldorf ; the Eighth still lingering, half displeased, half 
keeping guard on both sides of the stunned by the tremendous military 
Rhine up to Coblentz, and thence to energy displayed around them; hut to 
Mayence on the side nearest France; get to Wiesbaden was out of my power. 
and the Eleventh having Hessc-Darm- 1 had fallen upon abnormal times, and 
stadt and Hesse-Cassel in its care. The my carriage was ordered into a ditch, 
Eighth corps, too, guarded the whole where 1 sat quite contentedly for three 
section of country between Coblentz and mortal hours, while a steady stream 
the French frontier and Luxembourg, of the finest cavalry 1 had ever seen 
extending its lines up to Treves, Saiir- passed slowly by. Nearly every man 
bruek, Sarreburg, and Forbach. Count- of this grand body of troops was of 
ing the regiments on their war footing more than average height. The officers 
this command comprised about one hun- looked like a. superior kind of school- 
dred and fifty thousand men. masters. They were harsh in command 
As I continued ray difficult journey up and faultless in equipment. They 
the Rhine (he spectacle of the military seemed as if they had come out of 
preparations became more and more a line engraving, so irreproachable 
impressive. The highways were filled were they: white-gloved, decorated, no 
with long lines of troopers, with re- creases or wrinkles in their uniform, the 
splendent cuirasses, and in gray ami saddle appointments of their horses all 
gold, or in shining helmets and pretty perfect. It seemed almost too nice for 
blue or red uniforms. \t every railway soldiering. The whole land was swarming 
station dozens of young men, almost with troops. I went hack to Mayence, 
bovs, were waiting until thev could he and waited, before I could reach my 
transferred to the various points where hotel, while a boyish regiment went by, 
they were incorporated in their regi- clink! clink! every loot striking the 
meuts. Nearly all were clad simply and pavement in exactly the same way, 
carried little parcels, hurriedly made up. every knee thrown out at tin 1 same 
of provisions ami clothing. Now and identical angle. Under the hot sun 
then a group walked in. singing a jolly dowu went a boy. His comrades swung 
marching song, and laughing and joking their feel over him, and when the am- 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



187 



bulance-wagon came lie was picked np 
as automatically and mathematically as 
if it were done by a machine. Click! 
clack ! On went the ambulance-wagon 
with the sick man, hut the military 
movements had suffered no check'. 

The components of the Prussian sol- 
dier's uniform are very simple, tasteful, 
mid convenient. He might make a drink- 
ing-cup out of his helmet, and carve 
meat with his spike. He wears a bluish 
tunic with red colored cuffs and lappels, 
and a stout pair of dark-colored trousers ; 
carries a thick blanket, a canteen, a 
cooking-can, and a well-planned knap- 
sack in undressed calfskin. His fatigue- 
cap is flat, bordered with red. He has 
an undress uniform of coarse flax cloth, 
and a. pair of white trousers. His over- 
coat is long, voluminous, and docs 
splendid service at night, when he biv- 
ouacs in the open air. for the German 
army has no tents. The pockets and 
folds of his clothing are so arranged 
that he can carry in them numberless 
little things, and he fully improves the 
opportunities. 

When he bivouacs he plants his gun 
against his bayonet, places his side arms 
hanging overthem, and caps them with his 
helmet. I have seen ten thousand of these 
helmets poised thus on a long plain, 
making one sheeny mass, which from a 
distance was dazzling as a golden sea. 

On a country road, not far from Mav- 
cnee. I saw a troop of Hussars. It was 
the most superb spectacle that I wit- 
nessed during' the war. Each man sat 
erect and motionless as a statue, with 
one hand on the carbine laid upon his 
side pommel, and each beautiful horse 
was richly trapped. The cavalry lias 
the greatest wealth of dress, and the 
rathe:- gaudy splendor of some of the 
cavalry corps has a remembrance of the 
middle ages in it. 



The constant saluting of superiors by 
inferiors, the bawling of the orders to 
men, and the compactness of the pro- 
vision and baggage trains, all strike; 
strangely upon the foreigner's sense. 
Here was an organization which had 
evidently been going on and on for years 
and years, until the men who composed 
it did things as if by inherited motion; 
and yet this wonderful mechanism had 
been hut little heard of until four years 
before, in 1866. As to the saluting, it 
is incredibly formal. I sat, one evening, 
during this German advance, in front of 
the head-quarters of Prince Augustus, of 
Wurtemberg, atKaiserslautern, in Rhen- 
ish Bavaria, watching the common sol- 
diers, who were carrying heavy sacks of 
bread or grain, ami who were obliged to 
pass the sacred place where the little 
potentate was sitting. Although the 

| r fellows in their dusty fatigue-jackets 

were bent almost double with their loads, 
each one managed so to arrange his bur- 
den that he could carry one hand stiffly 
to his cap, until he had quite passed 
beyond the old prince. It was painful 
to see mature men stand sometimes for 
five minutes holding their hands to their 

hats, while a beardless hoy, some aris- 
tocratic officer, was conversing with 
them. 

Although the Germans had sacrificed 
much to order they had yet known 
how to .combine elegance with it. The 
held equipage of Prince Friedrich Karl, 
which I saw at Kaiserslautern. was 
one of the most perfect that can he 
imagined. There was a train of six 
compact light carriages, stored with all 
the requisites for the Prince and his 

stall'; and. close behind it. a field tele- 
graph and field post service. The t ile- 
graphie wagons are so arranged thai a 
station can be established, and rapidly 
connected with an existing line, within 



INS EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

reasonable distance. Couriers rode be- afternoon the answer came to disappoint 
hind the wagons in the order of march, and annoy us, couched in the follow- 
readv at a moment's notice to go from ing terms: " Ilis Highness regrets that 
the wagons to the staff, and hack again, an order this morning arrived from 
incessantly. As for the field post all Berlin that no correspondents should 
journalists who followed the movements be allowed to follow the field army, 
of the German armies learned to admire He is the inure sorry for this as he 
and reaped the managers of that match- had already given orders, since the 
less institution. reception of your letter, for the ex- 
At Carlsruhe, at Darmstadt, at Hei- animation of your credentials and such 
delberg, everywhere in the picturesque facilities as could properly be given." 
and poetic region in which the English It was evident that neither German 
and American traveller loves to linger nor French wanted observers on the 
in the soft midsummer time, there frontier before the first battles; but 
was the same haste of warlike prepara- we pushed on into the Pfalz, the rug- 
liuii. I pushed on to Speyer, a rather ged mountain country of Rhenish Ba- 
uglv old town, notable chiefly for its varia, over which both French and 
historic cathedral, and there found the Prussian armies have moved in hostile 
Crown Prince of Prussia, who was the array in past times. All through this 
object of m\ search. Here were doz- country the peasants were half fright- 
ens of Bavarian regiments; indeed, all ened to death. Although thousands 
Bavaria seemed to have taken rendez- upon thousands of soldiers were passing 
vnus at Speyer. There was a general alone- the country roads, in nearly every 
alarm among the inhabitants. The antiquated dorf, filled with squeaking 
French were reported to have crossed geese and crazy peasants, we found 
the frontier, and tin- Bavarians had the bedding and crockery packed for 
been so hurried to get up to this point instant transportation. From ever} 
that half-a-dozen pom fellows, in the house a Bavarian flag was hung out, 
square near the cathedral, were dying and in some of the country mansion-. 
of sunstroke, and hundreds were laid of the better sort little hospitals had 
up with sore feet and with aching heads, been prepared. At Neustadt we found 
The Bavarian Jaegers, clad in blue that the general occupying the town 
hunting suits, and with green plumes had. given orders that no civilians should 
in their helmets, were quite imposing, be admitted to the hotel; but we were 
Manv of the pool- boys had pallid faces. made exceptions by the landlord, who 
and the people of Speyer said that they said that lie would take the risk. At 
would not fight; hut they did fight the railway station my English com- 
like demons at the battle of Woerth. panion was collared for looking at a 
The English gentleman who was my passing military train, — what righl had 
companion in travel said they looked as he to look at it, indeed ! — and he luckily 
if they would like to bolt; but none of escaped with a muttered apology. 
them bolted. AVe sat late that night in trout of tile 

After a night at Speyer my companion little hotel, struck with astonishment at 

and I sent polite letters to the Crown the continual succession of troops, eom- 

Prince, asking for military passes into ing, coming, coming, in endless procession 

the field of operations; and during the and seemingly without fatigue, inarching 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



189 



oil to the fields beyond and establishing 
their bivouacs with but little noise and 
with no confusion. The surprise I felt 
then at the national strength displayed 
was, however, no greater than that which 
I felt on the day after the capitulation 
of the forts of Paris, when I saw come 
inarching into Versailles, click! clack! 
with the knees thrown out at the proper 
angle, a regiment of scaly-looking boyish 
troops, of fresh troops sent up from the 
depths of Germany, to fall in, if neces- 
sary, as readily and willingly as the tirst 
actives had fallen in. It may with truth 
be said that, from the beginning of the 
campaign to the end, Germany had fresh 
troops constantly arriving in France, 
and when the war was completely ended 
still had a few left to draw upon. The 
confederation of the North alone was 
ready at the beginning of the war to put 
on foot three hundred and eighty bat- 
talions of infantry, three hundred squad- 
rons of cavalry, two hundred batteries of 
artillery, being one thousand two hundred 
pieces, thirteen battalions of engineers, 
thirteen train battalions, — in all, five 
hundred and fifty thousand active men ; in 
addition to which it had a reserve of one 
hundred and eighty thousand men, and a 
solid landwehr numbering more than two 



hundred thousand. The Bavarian army 
furnished one hundred and ten thousand 
soldiers; the Wurtemberg army, thirty- 
six thousand; and the army of Baden, 
about the same number. All these, in 
the last days of July, when hostilities 
were just to commence, were grouped 
into three armies: the first, under the 
command of old General Steinmetz ; the 
second commanded by Prince Friedrich 
Karl ; and the third by the Crown Prince 
of Prussia. Under General Steinmetz, 
and, later, under Von Manteuffel, were 
the First, Eighth, and .Seventh corps, 
the Seventh commanded by the famous 
Lieutenant-General von Goeben ; under 
Prince Friedrich Karl were the Second. 
Third. Ninth, Tenth, Fourth, and Twelfth 
corps, the latter the Saxons, commanded 
by the Prince of Saxony, and tin' famous 
Guard corps commanded by the Prince 
of Wurtemberg ; and in the third army, 
which fought at Weissenburg, at Woerth, 
at Sedan, and was so conspicuous in 
trout of Paris during the siege, were the 
fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Thirteenth, ami 
Fourteenth corps. Three more formi- 
dable, better equipped, or more powerful 
armies never fell upon the frontiers of 
any unhappy country. 



liKt EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER TWENTY. 

'lln Spectacle in the Palatinate. — A, Visit to Landau. — The Saxon Troops mi the March. — A Night 
Drive. — Echoes from Weissenburg. — Through the Glades to Kaiscrslautern. — The Narrative <-l 
Strange Adventures which there befell us.— A Military Prison. — Challenging :i Denunciator. 
Arrested a Second Time. 

f|"MIIS concentration of troops in the eighty-two days of siege; but the fol- 

-L Palatinate was so remarkable a spec- lowing year it returned once more into 

tacle that we were willing to run greater the hands of the French, yet once again 

risks than we were likelv to be subjected lo be taken by the Imperials in 1704. 

to. for the purpose of witnessing it in Dunn swept the French upon it in 1713. 

all its aspects. It was noised abroad in occupying it a whole century, to give it 

the army, all too soon for our purposes, up to Bavaria after the treaties of 1815. 

that newspaper correspondents, or " writ- It was from Landau that one of his 

ers," as the Prussians scornfully called Generals wrote to Louis XIV. : "Sire. 

them, were not admitted among the we have taken more flags and standards 

guests of the moving camps ; and where- than Your Majesty has lost of soldiers." 

ever we went, therefore, we were eyed < )n the way to Landau, in the broiling 

and scowled at as presumable members sun. we had an opportunity to observe 

of some other profession. the conduct on the march of the young 

We were not slow to discover that the Saxon troops, who did not appear to 

inhabitants of the Palatinate were by no great advantage at the outset of the 

mean-, in sympathy with the Prussians, campaign, but who behaved wonderfully 

On the contrary they seemed to cherish well when in front of Paris, and did 

for them an especial dislike, criticised plenty of rough work. Evidently the 

l hem severely, and laughed at their pom- Saxon military shoemakers were at fault, 

pons air, their stiff uniforms, and their for the soldiers were seated by hundreds 

somewhat objectionable habit of combing in the ditches, nursing their feet, and 

their hair and whiskers while they sat at doubtless cursing the provocative French 

meals. most heartily. At the gates of Landau 

From Neustudt we went to Landau, we met a long train of ambulance-wag- 

the famous fortress-town, which the Em- ons, carrying to a hastily improvised 

peror Rudolph of Hapsburg made a free eamp two or three score of sunstruck 

Imperial city in the thirteenth century, youths. The poor fellows, thrown into 

and which was taken by assault and the wagons with their heavy knapsacks 

pillaged seven times during the Thirty and blankets slill strapped upon them, 

'('ears' war. Landau was taken posses- presented a pitiable appearance. With- 

sion of by Louis XIV. at the same time in the town everything indicated that 

that he placed his hand upon Alsatia ; the mixed forces who were there asseni- 

and he had it magnificently fortified by bled were on the alert, as was eminently 

Yauban. Back came the Imperial armies proper in the immediate vicinity of the 

and wrested it from Louis XIV.. after enemy. Regiments came and regiments 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



191 



went; cavalry clattered hack and forth; 
reviews were held ; the sick were lie- 
stowed in proper houses. The general 
officers were quite magnificent at the 
table d'Jidte of the principal hotel, dining 
and wining freely, yet with a certain 
preoccupied air peculiar to soldiers when 
action is impending. 

We left Landau late at night, and 
just in time to escape the overhauling 
of an inquisitive officer of the day. Our 
(canister lost his way while we were 
making for Germersheim, and. taking 
a long th'-tnitr. left us in doubt as to 
whether we were in France or German^ - , 
but with tiic pleasant consciousness that 

we were not far from the scene of 
battle. Night came on. so quiet that as 
we drove over the plains we could bear 
the cows pulling the short grass in the 
fields. Now and then we heard the 
tramp of hundreds of feet, and saw long 
black shadows, denoting the passage of 
a regiment. At last we came to the 
high road, and by and by to Gercners- 
heini. where we were saluted by a vig- 
orous invitation to halt, and a rather 
scornful intimation to "clear out" when 
we requested admission ; the sentinel 
merely deigning to remark that if 
was Festung (a fortification), and that 
we could not enter after hours. So we 
betook ourselves to the highway once 
more, passing through many antiquated 
dorfs, where the peasants were in a high 
state of excitement, and at the entrance 
of each of which little groupsof cavalry- 
men sat motionless on their horses, 
wrapped in their long cloaks, not even 
looking at us as we passed. After va- 
rious other adventures, such as straying 
into the old Rhine bed, and narrowly 
escaping wreck in the darkness and in 
the sandy, water-deserted reaches, we 
decided that it would be useless to 
return to Landau or to Speyer that 



night, and coming, towards dawn, to a 

little group of houses, we rested there. 
hoping fur better luck when the sun 
should rise. 

When morning came we were startled 
by certain dull sounds, which came from 
the direction of Fiance, and were some- 
what amused at the perturbation with 
which the German villagers declared that 
these sounds were the echoes of the mi- 
trailleuses, and that the French would 
soon he upon us. There was, however, 
no falling back on the part of the Ger- 
man troops; and, as we 1 heard nothing 
further, we concluded that our cars had 
been deceived, and, after an hour of ex- 
ploration in tin' direction of France, we 
returned to Germersheim. Hence my 
English friend counselled an immediate 
journey to Kaiserslautern, from which 
point one might see something of the 
principal advance in that direction. 

We had indeed heard the echoes of a 
battle, and of one which, though of no 
greal importance or duration, opened 
the door of Alsatia for Germany. The 
arinyofthe Crown Prince, with the Fifth 
corps, thirty-two thousand strong; the 
Eleventh with the same number; the 
First Bavarian corps, of thirty-eight thou- 
sand men. and the Second with thirty- 
two thousand, and the Bavarians and 
Wurtembergers more than forty thousand 
in number, with two divisions of cavalry 
seven thousand strong, — all these were 
thrown forward upon or near a point 
which was defended by a French di- 
vision, only nine thousand in number. 
The French are right when they say that 
General Douayand his division at Weis- 
senburg fought one against live, for at 
least eighty thousand Germans took part 
in the brief struggle on the morning of 
the 4th of August, which resulted in the 
retreat of the French ami the occupation 
of Weissenburg. Had the French been 



192 EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 

strong mid quick enough to have at their work, so that Weissenburg is 

pushed into Germain at this point, half- qualified as a costly victor}' even by the 

a-dozen clays before the mobilization of Germans. The French resistance, al- 

the German army was complete, how though the troops were totally unpre- 

different the results might have been! pared for such an overwhelming attack, 

But all the world knows the history of was very creditable, and lias always been 
the surprise, for it ivas a genuine sur- praised liy the enemy. It was better for 
prise, at Weissenburg. The French sol- General Douay that he should have been 
diers, in describing the battle, asserted killed, for, generous and true-hearted as 
thai General Douay had to improvise he was. he would never have forgiven 
his plan of action under the enemy's himself for being the unwitting instru- 
fire. A gallant French officer, M. Du- ment for the admission of the Germans 
ruv. who was engaged in the action, into the province which they had deter- 
saiil : ■ We were halted for an instant mined to take from their traditional foe. 
to reform lines, while advancing to the We made the best of our way over 
heights from which the German lire had the encumbered roads, now liter- 
come. This halt of ours was like' a ally swarming with troops, up through 
signal for the enemy, who had been for the picturesque mountain passes to 
some time silent and invisible. Ahor- Kaiserslautern, near which pretty little 
rible fusillade broke out all along our town Barbarossa is supposed to be still 
line of battle. The vineyards were liter- lying in his enchanted sleep. Here a 
ally filled with sharp-shooters, ambus- fellow American journalist and myself 
caded there since the morning, or excited the suspicious of a patriotic in- 
perhaps the evening before. They fired habitant of the town, who at once spread 
while kneeling down hidden among the the report that there wei - e " French spies " 
leaves, and. if I am not mistaken, shel- taking notes among the troops, and 
tered behind little hillocks of earth, towards evening, after our English friend 
which thev hail had time to throw up. had departed on a little reconuoitering 
liy their position they had a great ad- expedition towards Homburg on the 
vantage oyer us, as we were on the open frontier, we were surrounded by six 
road." stalwart soldiers, accompanied by an 

The iiiiirr/r of this recital is almost officer, who, without any unnecessary 

pathetic. It indicates a surprise, so politeness, informed us that we were 

creat as almost to deprive this officer, arrested. We could not deny the soft 

who was doubtless brave enough, of impeachment, and were marched off 

military sense. He seems to imply that through the town, escorted by a jingling 

it was disloyal and improper on the part procession of small boys and creasy 

of the Germans to take advantage of Jews, to a huge barrack building, where 

their position, or to fortify themselves we were initiated into the delights of a 

in it. The Crown Prince had rattled military prison. While we were not 

down from Speyer to Landau in a post- frightened we were deeply annoyed. 

chaise, and thence on horseback to the because we had wished to push nil that 

outposts, to be present at this action, night to the frontier. Our companion 

He directed the storming of the castle in misfortune was a gigantic personage 

of Schafeuburg by the King's Grena- connected with the army, who was labor- 

diers, who were very badly cut up while ing under a temporary hallucination, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



193 



superinduced by copious libations, and 

who insisted, :it intervals throughout 
the night, in threatening to exterminate 
us with his jack-boots, which he could 
certainly have done it' he had persisl d 
in attempting it. About midnight, our 
situation becoming intolerable, we clat- 
tered furiously upon the door, and 
made most vigorous protests, which 
brought to us a superior officer, superbly 
dressed, who took our passports and 
protests, and left us with the cool 
remark, that, whether we were right or 
wrong, there we must bide the night. 
We did bide there with as much patience 
as we could command, and were not. a 
little startled when the door was opened 
in the morning to lind six men and a 
sergeant wailing to escort us, whither 
we knew not. We were ordered to " fall 
in," and were marched, in the rain, 
which was coming down in torrents, 
through some back streets of the town, 
our escort proceeding with such solem- 
nity that we began to fancy that we 
might be going to our own execution. 
My companion vouchsafed the remark 
that they "certainly could not, shoot 
us." " But then," he added, "if they 
wish to, they have guns enough;" 
and with this poor attempt at wit we 
were both satisfied for the moment. 

When we were quite drenched the 
minions of an effete despotism deposited 
us in the. hall of a large and dingy 
structure, and retired without bidding us 
good-morning, but not without, seeing 
that we were properly locked in. As 
this hall was not especially inviting of 
aspect, we made bold to open a .side 
door, and found ourselves in a comfort- 
ably warmed room, around three sides 
of which ran shelves filled with docu- 
ments, and we concluded that we were 
in the office of some functionary. Seated 
in a corner was a portly man, with a sin- 



gularly white face, and something so sad, 
yet. proud, in his demeanor that we could 
not help observing him carefully. We 
learned during the day that he had 
passed fifteen years in a fortress, wear- 
ing a ball and chain attached to one of 
his legs, because he had been too free 
with his pen in his criticism of the gov- 
ernment under which he lived ! At 
present lie was one of the large Liberal 
party in Kaiserslautern, men who hated, 
and wdio did all they could to oppose, the 
military policy and the crushing despot- 
ism which Prussia had imposed upon the 
whole nation. 

After what seemed to us an inter- 
minable delay this personage came out 
of his corner, ami informed us in the 
German tongue that some one would 
■oine presently to examine us ; then fol- 
lowed another delay, which appeared like 
weeks, out it was only half an hour. 
An amiable gentleman, with a. fiery com- 
plexion, arrived with a somewhat, be- 
wildered air, as if he had been suddenly 
awakened from bis slumbers, and taking a 
chair, and drawing it up to tin.- table in 
front of which we had ventured to seat 
ourselves, he laid before him a package, 
upon which he laid both his fat hands. 
'1 hen he took a lung look at. us, after 
which he burst into a loud laugh, and 
said in English: "Veil, boys, I think' 
you were in a scrape." 

As there was no disposition on our' 
part to deny this, and finding that he 
spoke his broken English in a manner 
which indicated a, period of sojourn in 
America, we ventured to interrogate him, 
and found that he had, like many other 
Germans, returned to the Palatinate, 
after a long and prosperous stay in the 
United States, and that, he was one of 
the members of the city council in 
Kaiserslautern The military authori- 
ties, despairing of making spies out 



194 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



of us. had handed us over to the 
town, and had given into our new 
friend's hands all the papers which had 

been found Upon lis. These papers 

were now returned to us with a cour- 
teous apology from the representative 
(it the city's dignity and with the remark 
that the burgomaster would shortly call 
upon us to express his regrets at the 
unfortunate occurrence. 

It was at the " White Swan " Inn that 
we had been arrested, just as we 
were .sitting down to dinner, and 1 was 
somewhat amused at the vehemence 
with which our city councillor insisted 
upon our going to the "White .Swan" 
with him, and bestowing upon tin' land- 
lord a few specimens of Anglo-Saxon 
invective. We declined to do this, and 
expressed a preference for bed. So we 
adjourned to the Prince Karl Hotel, where 
we were warmly received, and sent to 
the " White 1 Swan " for our personal be- 
longings. We had laid quietly down to 
rest when there came a loud knock at 
the bedroom door, and in walked a 
policeman. This we considered toomuch 
of a trial after the adventures of tin' 
night, but this functionary insisted upon 
our dressing and accompanying him. 
What was our amusement and amaze- 
ment when we discovered that the land- 
lord of the "White Swan " had summoned 
us before a magistrate, there to listen to 
his affidavit that he had had nothing to 
do with our arrest. Back we went to 
the hotel, and once more to lied ; and at 
one o'clock, the hour when dinner is 
served in most German hotels, we went 
down to the long dining-room, in which 
perhaps one hundred officers were smok- 
ing and drinking ; and there we encoun- 
tered our friend, the city councillor, and 
wen' invited to break bread with him. 

We had not been long in the room 
when we discovered that at its oppo- 



site end was a party of gentlemen wh<< 
were in no wise in sympathy with our 
city councillor, and who were certainly 
making merry at our expense. We in- 
quired thi' reason of this, and our German 
supporter then told us that there were 
two parties in Kaiseislanterii. bitterly 
hostile each to the other. Prominent in 
one of these parties was a certain Chris- 
tian Sind, who had a special dislike for 
all Americans, and for all the Germans 
who had returned from America bring- 
ing with them their criticisms upon the 
old and slow methods of doing business, 
and also bringing with them larger 
fortunes than llerr Sind and his col- 
leagues had been able to get together at. 
home. Ilerr Sind, in his wanderings 
through the town, had observed our 
movements, and had reported them as 
suspicious to the military authorities; 
hence our arrest. These facts had come 
out during the morning while we were 
sleeping off the memory of the cavalry- 
man and his annihilating jack-boots, and 
our arrest was now to be made matter 
for a furious discussion between the 
contending parties in the city council. 
My companion, who had served through 
our civil war. was a bit of a wag, aud 
fancied that from Ilerr Sind's appearance 
he might not relish the notion of a duel ; 
so he sent a card to that suspicions gen- 
tleman, with an intimation that, if the 
report concerning Ilerr Sind's conduct 
were true, he had not behaved in a gen- 
tlemanly fashion, and hoped he would 
give him immediate satisfaction. 

Ilerr Sind arose and came to our table 
in a state of anger which it would be 
difficult to describe. To my friend he 
said, in broken English, that he would 
not light with a boy; whereupon, my 
friend, with an impetuous obstinacy 
born of the occasion, endeavored to 
stimulate the courage of Ilerr Sind with 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



L95 



one or two of those epithets which arc 
rarely received calmly. But the cham- 
pion of the Conservative party in Kais- 
erslautern was not warlike. lie bel- 
lowed defiance, but went no further. 
After a few war-dances about our table 
he retreated to his own, and there con- 
sumed the remains of his dinner in 
moods" silence. The German officers, 
who had got wind of the affair, were de- 
lighted at my friend's conduct, and 
stood up in line, shouting innumerable 
" Hochs," holding out their glasses to 
him as a sign of approval of his conduct. 
Our friend of the fiery complexion was 
now reinforced by a number of his col- 
leagues, and we completed our dinner 
with the feeling of having thoroughly 
triumphed over our enemies. 

But this was not all. During the 
course of the afternoon we received an 
immense document from the city hall, 
signed by the burgomaster himself, and 
announcing that we were personally 
known to the city government of the 
good burgh of Kaiserslautern ; that our 
papers had been inspected ; and that we 
were entitled to protection, military and 



civil, wherever we might travel in Ger- 
man lines, in war or peace. Meantime 
we received a letter from our English 
friend, informing us that he had been 
safely bestowed in a small guard-house 
at the next town beyond Kaiserslautern, 
Ilerr Sind's denunciation having included 
him, and having led the military authori- 
ties to believe that they had bagged a 
trio of dangerous spies. 

The recommendation from the city 
government of Kaiserslautern did not 
hinder us from being arrested again, at 
a small town near by a day or two after- 
wards. 

Some years later I was conversing 
with the editor of a German paper in 
St. Louis about the Franco-German war, 
and happened to mention the fact of 
this second arrest. 

" Ah ! " he said, " that could not have 
happened in the section of Germany in 
which I was born." 

"Where were you born'" I ventured 
to inquire. 

" In Alzey." 

Now it was in Alzey that our second 
arrest occurred. 



L96 EUROPE J.V STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. 

Germcrsbeim. — The Rhino Boil.— Across the Frontier. — Weissenburg. - Ou to Woerth.— The Disaster to 
the French.— Tho< lerman Descent of the Hill under Fire. — I har^c of Gen. Bonncmain's Cuirassiers. 

—The Valley of Hell. — MacMal 's I), feat. — The Horrors of the Kotreat.— Frossaitl's Negligence. 

— Bazainc's Jcalon \ . 

FROM Alzey we thought it worth our over the same road which we had taken 
while to return to Landau and on the night of our departure from 
Germersheim, and so to gel up to the Landau. The troops were pouring along 
line of the Crown Prince's operations, the highways sileutlv, and with that air 
Germersheim stands ou the Rhine, at a of gravity which always settles down 
point nearly opposite an important for- upon a marching army when it knows 
tress in Baden. The Rhine, "Inch for- that an encounter is just ahead of it. 
merly persisted in performing the letter S The country was rough, broken by small, 
twice between Speyer and Germersheim, hut difficult, hills, and on either side of 
has now been considerably straightened, the post road, by which we crossed into 
and the old bed of the river acids to the France, there were long rows of noble 
strength of the fortress by making it trees. The German outposts were scat- 
difficult to get within attacking distance, tered along the frontier at. every few 
[mmense sums of money had been spent rods, and we heard wonderful stories 
on the fortifications <>( Germersheim about sharp-shooting which we took 
within the thirty years preceding the' with the necessary grain of salt. At 
war. The country round about is very Weissenburg we found proclamations, 
beautiful. The little Queich river rani- posted on all the principal buildings, 
hies and rushes through green fields and announcing that no inhabitant would do 
along the edges of pretty forests. l)i- disturbed unless interfering with the 
rectly to the south of Germersheim lies progress of military operations ; in which 
Sonderheim, and, further below. Hordt, case he would be shot. The French 

two fortified towns of s e importance, peasantry seemed rather servile towards 

The Germans hail anticipated that the the invaders, and many nun professed 
French might attack from Weissenburg, loudly that they were not, at all in 
usinu; the railway between Germerslieim favor of the war. They rebelled in 
and Landau t<> hasten the transportation some instances against the unwelcome 
of troops, ami we found this road duty of burying the dead, which the in- 
guarded at every mile with such precau- vading Germans forced upon them; but 
tions as only the German armies can they were compelled to do the work, 
take. Landau and Germersheim are the There were but few instances of mur- 
offsets t<> Lauterburg and Weissenburg ders in cold Mood in Weissenburg after 
on the southern French frontier to Rhen- thefight. One old man brained a IIus- 
ish Bavaria. sar, who was entering his house, and we 
From Germersheim to the frontier we were told that he would probably be 
bad an uneventful jouiraey. We went shot, for it, unless it could be proven 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



197 



that the soldier had done him nomc 
harm. 

No sooner had the Crown Frince won 
his extraordinary success at Weissenburg 
than he telegraphed to Berlin: "Stop 
everything else, and send me provisions. 
Do not delay a moment." Pausing on 
the confines of the enemy's country, and 
glancing over its impoverished villages 
and bare fields, he saw that he must 
prepare to take with him all his means 
of sustenance. There was not even a 
potato to be found in the (ields, and the 
peasants of Weissenburg and twenty 
miles around were at their wits' end to 
procure provisions for themselves. Had 
there been a certainty of plenty to eat 
for some days the impatient Prince 
would have engaged the French a second 
time before the Gth ; but lie was com- 
pelled to wait, and is said to have had 
grave doubts as to the results of this 
delay. He threw himself upon the task 
with unparalleled ardor, and was on toot 
in the town one whole night, comforting 
the wounded, and guarding by Ins pres- 
ence the inhabitants against wrong. 

Having received the news of the Siiar- 
bruck operations, of which we knew 
nothing at the time of our visit, and, 
doubtless, being aware of the determina- 
tion of Frince Friederich Karl to give 
battle in that vicinity, he pushed forward 
his men on the steps of the flying enemy. 
On the evening of the 5th of August 
he found that MacMabon's forces were 
not far off, hut were said to be in a dis- 
organized condition, the flight of the di- 
vision which had been vanquished a! 
Weissenburg having been communicated 
to the whole line. He therefore' en- 
deavored to crown the success of the 
invasion by a crushing blow, which 
would enable him to proceed to Mel/. 
and Nancy, driving MacMahon before 
him, and destroying all his hopes of 



communication with the other army 
corps, which were just then, although 
the Crown Prince of course did not know 
it, about to suffer a defeat. But he was 
now in the midst of a broken and rough 
country, where forests covered the an- 
cient hills from the sunlight, and his 
advance was difficult, slow, and full of 
suspicion. He went forward, feeling 
that he was not thoroughly supplied, and 
dreading to go far till supplies could 
come up. 

On the morning of the Gth his 
advance was approaching Ticfcnbach. 
Very early on that morning the sound 
of rifle-shots was heard, and before the 
sun was warm in the sky the Crown 
Prince, with a few staff officers, rode 
hurriedly to the extreme front, and 
an engagement was at once begun. 
Marshal MacMahon had marched on the 
4th of August upon Ilaguenau. The 
Emperor had placed at his disposition 
'the Fifth corps of General De Failly, 
and if that General had been diligent on 
the disastrous day of the Gth the Mar- 
shal might, perhaps, have held out 
better than he did against the Germans. 
MacMahon had intended to join his 
forces with those of General de Failly, 
and to attack the right Hank of the 
Germans on the 7th; but he was one 
day too late in his plans. 

The Germans found that Marshal 
MacMahon had taken up his position 
between Langensulzbach on the north 
ami Morsbronu on the south, a field full 
of ravines and patches of wood, and cut 
up here and there into hop-fields. The 
First division, commanded by General 
Ducrot, was at Froshweiler ; the Third, 
between Froshweiler and KIsassliausen ; 
the Fourth, facing the table-land of ( iuns- 
tett. with its right on Morsbronu. A 
division of the Seventh, placed, like the 
Fifth, at MacMahon's disposition (it had 



L98 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 

arrived in the mornim;). was put in the of the solitary mitrailleuse, which was in 

second line with the Douay division, position, made these veterans groan, but 

which had just been in the Weissenburg could nol turn them hack. The slopes 

fight. MacMahon had now under his were strewn with wounded, and now 

command but forty-six thousand availa- and then n stout man would jump into 

hh' men with which to hold his position tin- air and fall, dismembered and blecd- 

against <>ih- hundred and sixty thousand ing. The cries of tin 1 wounded, at on.' 

Germans. The Second Bavarian corps or two points in this march down the 

began an attack on the Duciot division ; hill, were so terrible that the French 

at the same time the Fifth Prussian thought a general retreat had begun, and 

corps attacked the Raoult division in the the artilleurs stopped firing t<> gaze, as- 

centre. tonished. I'>nt still the relentless march 

At seven o'clock in the morning, along went on. 
a range of hills beyond Woerth, the Part of the Fifth corps, composed 

batteries were playing their liveliest, entirely of Prussians from Posen, the 

The little village of Froshweiler, two Seventh, Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth 

miles from Weissenburg, was crammed regiments, many of the men with the 

with French troops, waiting to .40 into Kceniggratz modal on their breasts, were 

action. There was no excitement on now also engaged in this solemn prome- 

tlie pari of the German troops, who uade towards death and victory ; and the 

were jogging along the high-road, when columns began to blacken the hill-side as 

they heard Hie advance body open lire, far as the eve could see, back to the 

Everything was conducted in the most sombre line of wood. Now and then 

orderly and tranquil manner. through the foliage were seen the bright 

The picturesque town of Woerth helmets of the Prussians. In some 
stands iii tin' basin formed by a circu- places the piles of dead, left by advanc- 
lar range of hills, steep, wooded in ing regiments, obstructed the progress of 
patches, and with vineyards scattered those coming on behind ; and a lone, 
here and there. Beyond the town, on patient halt under tire was made by men 
the north-west side, and in the direction who expected every moment to lie iiuin- 
of Froshweiler, is an old castle. A bered among the slain. 
little brook, escaped from the hidden Meantime the outer battle line of the 
bases of the hills, wanders through French, the Turcos, the Zouaves, and 
Woerth to lose itself speedily in the the Liners, equally distributed, had ad- 
thickets. The French lines, as massed vaiiecd partially down the opposite hill, 
upon the hills opposite the Germans, and were firing rapidly, but with lack of 
were so extended as to form a species precision, at the resistless yet unresisting 
of semicircle, and from these lines there and on-coining men. The French soldier 
came a steady lire of shells, under which Usually goes heavily loaded with ainniii- 
the Eleventh Prussian corps of Hessian nition, carrying twice the number of 
and Nassau troops began, at perhaps rounds allowed in other armies ; and with 
nine o'clock, to descend the hill, and the chassepot in his hands, and with his 
to march steadily and unwaveringly, marvellous celerity of firing, he seemed 
although they seemed marching to cer- on this day almost like a demon vomiting 
tain death. The tremendous clamor of fire and smoke. One echo, one roll and 
the shells, and the occasional dry whir crash, followed another so quickly that 



II ROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



1!)!) 



the interval between was hardly percep- 
tible. 

The French sometimes, since the battle 
was ended at or very near Froshweiler, 
to which they were obliged to retire, give 
the name of that town to it. The Prus- 
sians called it the victory of Woerth, 
and as such it will probably be known 
in history. The struggle extended over 
a lung tract of ground, and its shocks 
were felt in seven or eight villages. 
MacMahon had certainly distributed his 
scanty forces with admirable skill, with 
a view to covering the possible advance 
of the enemy from Strasbourg to Bitche. 
He had suffered great anxiety because 
of his poverty of forces before he had 
discovered the overwhelming numbers of 
the enemy. He was obliged to leave 
the town of Morsbronn, which after- 
wards became one of the most important 
points in the battle, unoccupied, because 
lie had not troops enough. At this place 
occurred the celebrated charge of the 
cuirassiers of General Bonnemaiu, who 
were thrust forward by Marshal Mac- 
Mahon in a desperate endeavor to hurl 
back the dark masses of Germans who 
seemed to spring out of the very hill-side. 
This magnificent division of cavalry, 
which has been amply celebrated in song 
ami story for the last decade in France, 
went crashing and clattering into the 
vineyards, where the men and horses were 
slaughtered by dozens. These men 
of the Eighth and Ninth Cuirassiers were 
among the very best troops in the French 
army : they were fit antagonists for the 
colossal German troops; and, had they 
been properly matched against an even 
number of the enemy, would have held 
their own superbly. They had to go 
through the village of Morsbronn to de- 
scend into the valley, there form anew, 
and charge. As they went through the 
village dozens of them were dropped 



from the saddles by Germans ambus- 
caded in the houses and in the alleys ; 
from the windows revolvers were tired 
upon them, and once outside of Mors- 
bronn the batteries tilled the valley with 
the very tires of hell. 

In the midst of this terrific hail of 
shell they managed to get into line ; 
but when they charged they were deci- 
mated, stricken as if by lightning, and 
the movement which they had hoped to 
accomplish was rendered completely im- 
possible. All along the French line 
from Elsasshausen, at which the right of 
the Second brigade of the Third division 
was supported, to where the broken line 
of the Fourth division faltered from the 
right of the Third, — to Morsbronn, 
there was the most, frightful slaughter. 
Marshal MacMahon, as I have since 
been told by French soldiers, had been 
in the saddle the greater part of the 
previous night, and had hardly taken 
food since he had heard the news of the 
Weissenburg defeat. 

It was to turn the general position of 
the French, and make them change their 
front, that the terrible advance of I lie 
Germans into this valley of death be- 
tween the hills bristling with artillery 
was made. When the Germans had 
reached the bottom of the hill they were 
naturally in full possession of Woerth. 
In the town itself there were no French 
soli hers. The unfortunate inhabitants 
were half dead with fright; and, after 
the Prussians had taken possession, many 
houses were fired upon by the French, 
and some of the inhabitants were badly 
wounded. A ••lazareth," or sanitary 
station, was established, and the ambu- 
lance corps of the Germans were soon 
bringing wounded into the captured town 
at the risk of their own lives. 

Just outside the little dorf the slaughter 
had been so great that dead and wounded 



200 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

were piled together, and the living had bayonet wounds were found on his dead 

to be picked out of the ghastly heaps of body. 

the slain, while shells were making fresh While this sanguinary struggle was in 

victims dose at hand. Several of the progress on the hill, and the straggling 

surgeons were killed on the held. One French reserve was hurrying up, a sharp 

prisoner told of being found at the very lire was begun from the left hank of the 

bottom of a heap of dead men; and a Saucrbach by the Germans. This di- 

Prussian officer, whom I met afterwards verted the attention of the French, but 

at Versailles, told me with much gusto was soon discovered to be a false attack, 

the manner in which the wounded rolled and did no great harm. Some of the 

into the ditches of the valley to escape French guns were presently dismounted 

bullets. lie himself, heavily wounded, by the artillery on the opposite hill, 

rolled into a ditch. Presently there and the French line began to waver 

joined him another, who died in a few under the tearing and rending shocks 

minutes. " By the time the battle was of the German tire. Some of the offi- 

over," he adds, " I was in the midst of ccrs of the line, seeing that there was 

seven horrible-looking objects, who had every probability of being forced to 

rolled into the mini, just as I had, from surrender, marched into the thick of the 

instinct ; and live of us saved our bullets, and tell. 

lives." Here on these slopes varying fortune 
Rushing in wild confusion through and dealt continuous death, and the advance 
around the town the German troops gradually became more difficult, he- 
began charging up the steep hill, where cause not. only of the piled-up slain, 
the French awaited them. By this time but of the hundreds, even thousands, 
the first French corps had changed its of knapsacks thrown away by both 
front, and a number of infantry regiments the combating parties. The vigorous 
advanced slowly down the hill to meet attack on the extreme right of Mac- 
the enemy- Half-way up the declivity Mahon's position was at last crowned with 
the number of German dead decreased success. The Prussians, who had been 
rapidly, and the French began to tall bringing up artillery all the forenoon, 
like grain before the reaper. The Gcr- had now about sixty pieces of cannon 
mans were determined to avenge the on the table-land at Gunstctt, opposite 
punishment received during their terrible Morsbronn, and protected their infantry, 
preliminary march, and they ran forward which charged in great numbers on the 
lo shirt range, then began firing with Second division and the Second brigade 
most methodical dignity, always hitting of the Third division, at Elsasshauseu. 
and generally killing. The Turcos and The Bavarians and the Wurtemburgers 
Zouaves were mown down rapidly, anil were in this charge, and fought like de- 
such was the indignation of the Germans mons, losing less killed than any other 
against die Wilden, as the Arabs were corps, '•because," said a prisoner to me, 
called, that when one fell a shout of '-they never stood still long enough to 
triumph arose. One lieutenant of a hi- shot." 

Turco regiment, mad with the instinct The powerful fire of the Gunstett bat- 

of coming defeat, ran forward, accom- teries caused a wail to go up all over 

panied by twenty of his men, plump into France two days alter the battle. In 

the arms of the Germans. V dozen and around the hop-fields and vineyards 



EURO/'/-; LV STOHM AND CALM, 



201 



at Morsbronn France lost ninny a gallant 
gentleman and gay soldier on that bitter 
August day; and it was a black hour 
and is a black memory. 

The Prussians gradually poured upon 
the field three to one against the small 
band of Frenchmen, who now were 
fighting with the ferocity of despair. 
There was in the charge of Elsasshausen 
some hand-to-hand lighting, in which 
both sides manifested an animosity 
aroused by the mutual taunts before the 
war. It was when the tremulous bugles 
were sounding retreat and misfortune for 
the armies of France that there was a 
great rush on either side for a final 
struggle. When this was over, the 
French, vanquished on the hills back of 
Woerth, and with their central right, 
cleft in twain, found Marshal MacMahon 
in a fainting condition, with his horse 
killed under him. A French friend, 
who was in this battle, told me that 
MacMahon narrowly escaped death a 
dozen times. Once his cravat was shot 
away. The Marshal, reviving, took a 
hasty view of the situation, and the mel- 
ancholy retreat began. 

A noble soldier of the Forty-fifth 
French line, who was in this battle, and 
who was killed at Sedan, has left on 
record his impressions of t!ie frightful 
condition of the French army after the 
light. " All the corps," he wrote, 
" were mixed up in a nameless rabble. 
The enemy, from its advantageous posi- 
tion, threw its hissing shells into the 
midst of this crowd, cutting bloody fur- 
rows chrough it. The ground over which 
we walked was covered with dying and 
dead men. The entreaties of the 
wounded to us not. to abandon them, 
and to carry them along, were heart- 
rending. The pursuit was ardent. Our 
rear-guard stopped from time to time to 
engage the enemy, and give our artillery 



a chance to get a little ahead, and to the 
engineer corps to block up the routes. 
At a short distance from Reichshoffen " 
(this is another French name for Woerth) 
" our artillery fired its last shot, which 
the Marshal hail carefully preserved, lie- 
cause, if we may believe an eye-witness, 
at four o'clock in the afternoon we were 
already without much ammunition." 

It is said that Marshal MacMahon was. 
in a moment of despair and rage, in- 
clined to engage in a last charge into the 
enemy's lines in the hope of winning 
a soldier's death; but his escort said to 
him: "Why get yourself killed? You 
must not go ; you must come with us." 

So, covered with dust, with his clothes 
filled with bullet-holes, poor MacMahon 
designated Saverne as the rallying point 
for his troops, and left the field which 
he had done his best to contest, against 
overwhelming numbers. Saverne was 
eight leagues away, and eight leagues 
after such a day for this army, without. 
proper ammunition, without food, ami 
completely disorganized, was a terrible 
march. The French withdrew, leaving 
behind their wounded, all their baggage, 
six thousand prisoners, thirty-five can- 
non, six mitrailleuses, two Hags, and 
four thousand wounded men. They had 
lost General Colson, the Marshal's 
General of Staff. General Raoult was 
dying. It was, as the French writers 
described it at the time, not, a defeat; 
it was a veritable disaster, — the blot- 
ting out of the most vigorous corps in 
the French army. 

The Germans admit that they lost 
aboiu eleven thousand men. and the 
French claim that the German victory 
cost Germany sixteen thousand men. 
The Crown Prince himself was profuse 
in his expressions of respect for the 
enemy which he had encountered. 

Thus, on the Gth of August, the 



202 EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 

Crown Prince had advanced his offen- of General Frossard, had been attacked 

sive line almost in exact unison with between Saiirbruck and Forbacb. 

Steinmetz, at and beyond Saarbruck, Marshal Bazaine should have sent to 

towards the most important fortress of this point sufficient forces to help Fros- 

France. This very fortress France had said; but it is on record that Bazaine, 

not prepared properly to defend, since when he heard of the scrape into which 

she had counted on cutting into the the Imperial favorite had got, said: 

enemy's country. "Let him earn his Marshal's bdton 

While ( General de Failly had been hesi- all alone." 
tating between Bitche and Niederbronn, 1' ■ Frossard not only got no Mar- 
hearing the cannon thundering, without shal's b&ton, hut by losing the day at 
hastening to the scene of combat, as he Forbach he lost the Moselle to France, 
should have done, the Second corps, that 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



■»i >.". 



C 1 1 APTEF. TWENTY-TWO. 

Tin- Great Battles in trout of and around Metz. — Friedrich Karl. — The Saarbruck Allah-. — Folly 
and Incompetence. — The Brandenburg Cavalry. — The Field of Rezonville. — Gravelotte. — Saint 
Privat. — Mars La Tour. 



"TT^IIFN the decimated Prussian regi- 
W meats gathered together, to sing 
their evening hymn, after the victory at 
Woerth, two gigantic German armies 
were already on the soil of France, and 
rapidly effecting a junction. 

The Germans say that the splendid 
unity of the Crown Prince and of Nteiu- 
metz in action on the 26th was the lirst 
great success of the war. For three 
days titter Woerth the Crown Prince 
gave his whole time to provisioning his 
tinny, putting the living into the most 
comfortable condition possible, and the 
dead into the ground. The forty thou- 
sand men in the quartermaster's de- 
partment did their work well, and the 
supplies came rolling in from all direc- 
tions. Except the Prince, not a man, 
save the dare-devil Uhlanen, or Lancers, 
who went skirmishing about the barren 
country away from the army, suffered 
from hunger. The prisoners coming to 
tln j rear plucked up courage on the new- 
diet, and took a. jolly view of things. 

What was Friederich Karl, whose 
armies J had seen moving up through 
the defiles of the Pfalz past Kaisers- 
lautern, doing till this time? 

In a letter to his wife, which was 
published in the Prussian papers of 
the day, he wrote : " I am a half rag- 
ing man, for I cannot, with my accursed 
luck, find these Frenchmen. They are 
all gone away." But Steinmetz, the 
"aged terrible," with seventy thousand 
men, was pushing forward rapidly by 
the short wavs north of Metz, towards 



that virgin fortress ; and Friederich Karl, 
burning with emulation and a hit of 
professional jealousy, cut in by Pont-a- 
Mousson, and came up by the other way. 
The Crown Prince, only forty miles 
from Metz, was beginning to make the 
good old town of Nancy quake with the 
visits of his adventurous Uhlans. 

King William had taken absolute 
possession of the provinces wherein 
his armies were stationed ; had given 
them military government ; enumerated 
seventeen classes of people who would 
he shot without mercy if they interfered 
with military operations; made the in- 
habitants furnish six cigars per day for 
each soldier, so said the angry Alsa- 
tians; given them to understand that 
any soldier who abused them should he 
severely punished; and even had time 
to answer the Pope's letter praying for 
peace, politely telling him to attend to 
his own affairs. 

The old King was often afield too; 
rode reconnoitering, attended only by 
half-a-dozen officers ; sang hymns with 
the hoys at the bivouacs ; wrote pious 
little letters to his Queen, intended, of 
course, to thrill the country ; devised 
even a gigantic scheme to catch Napo- 
leon, and make him a prisoner in front 
<<( .Metz. hut tailed. 

The part played by the French Em- 
peror in the campaign up to the time 
of MacMahon's retreat upon Chalons 
was not calculated to inspire his sub- 
jects with admiration lor his military 
or political talent. The recital of the 



204 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Saiirbrnck affair caused :i rippleof laugh- and one o'clock, when the French troops 

ter at most of the European Courts, went down from the heights, aud 

and the despatch sent off to the opened a violent lire upon Hie town, 

Empress the moruing after the little for the first time getting ;a notion of the 

engagement, and published immediately tactics of the Prussians, who. as usual 

by one of the leading Paris journals, in all their battles, were ambuscaded 

made the dignified military men of the in the houses or behind their barri- 

capital bite their lips and scowl. In cades. The Germans were obliged to 

this despatch Napoleon spoke of bis retreat, which they did with so much 

son's having received the " baptism of deliberation and in such good order 

fire;" of the shells and bullets falling that the French troop-; openly cx- 

at their Imperial feet; of the Prince pressed their admiration. A Prussian 

Imperial's coolness, and how he picked colonel, mounted on a white horse, 

up a. bullet which fell near him ; how the braved the lire of the mitrailleuses so 

soldiers wept at seeing him so calm, often that he was cheered by both 

and bow all this glory was procured at sides. 

the moderate cost of one officer killed Despatches announcing a " great vic- 
and a few soldiers wounded. lory" were sent off to Paris; but the 
"This mise-en-schie," says a distin- German account, published the same 
guished French historian of the cam- day, and telegraphed throughout Europe 
paign, ''displeased everybody." The reduced the incident to its proper pro- 
fact was, that the campaign which had portions. It read as follows: ■■ Yes- 
been opened on the 2Gth of July by terday, at ten o'clock in the morning, a 
a skirmish at Niederbronn, bad its little detachment of our troops at Saiir- 
second episode at Saarbruck, which brack was attacked by three divisions 
was occupied by a battalion of the of the enemy. The town was bombarded 
Fortieth regiment of Prussian infantry, at noon by twenty-three pieces of artil- 
and three squadrons of cavalry, with lery. At two o'clock the town had been 
a few pieces of artillery. The Germans evacuated and the detachment retired, 
were so confident that the French Our losses are small. According to the 
would make the first attack, and would report of a prisoner, the Emperor was in 
cross the frontier, that they had ranged front of Saarbruck at eleven o'clock." 
themselves in line of battle on the Had the men of the Second Empire 
light bank of the Saar, bad gent up not fully appreciated their weakness 
two battalions to reinforce the troops they might have had the courage to seize 
in Saarbruck as soon as the advance upon the little advantage which they at 
of the French was reported, and a few first gained at Saarbruck, and to push 
miles back had strong reserves to pro- boldly forward into Germany, hoping 
tect the retreat of the little corps. The that the nation would rise behind them, 
French took position on the heights of and that the armies, now coming rapidly 
the left bank of the river, and their forward, despite their miserable coin- 
batteries swept the valley; and here missariat and other defects of equipment, 
the mitrailleuses for the first time made might rush in and sweep the Germans 
their hoarse voices heard. The action back to the Rhine. But all the leaders 
which began in the morning of the 2d of the Empire knew that the corruption 
of August culminated between eleven and the lack of preparation were not to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



205 



be remedied. They must have foreseen 
disaster, and they determined ti> satisfy 
themselves with a vain show of resistance. 
Marshal MacMahon is the only one who 
can be exempted from this reproach. 

No sooner had the Emperor sent off 
his despatch to the Empress than he 
went back to Metz, but not to remain 
there long. It is curious that his de- 
parture from the great fortress should 
coincide with th i beginning of the battles 
around .Metz. He left on the morning 
of the 14th, accompanied by the Prince 
Imperial, and was off again for Verdun 
as soon as the action at Longevillc ap- 
peared to have turned in favor of the 
French. The Germans made much 
sport of the unfortunate Emperor, and 
their papers were tilled with anecdotes 
about his journey. "At one place," 
savs one aeeount, "• the Emperor asks 
for a glass of wine at a railway station, 
and drinks from the same glass as the 
station-ma ste] . The young Prince after- 
wards washes his hands in the goblet. 
Soon after the Emperor leaves in a 
rough carriage, and refuses with great 
heroism the cushion offered him. It 
is not every day," adds the sarcastic 
German, "that one goes to or from a 
baptism of lire." Another account says 
that all Paiis is grumbling because it 
hears that three regiments have been 
taken from Bazaine's army to guard the 
Imperial party to Chalons. A common 
remark among the French soldiers when 
Napoleon's name was mentioned was: 
•' Do not speak of that, donkey to us ! " 

Poor MacMahon's retreat upon Cha- 
lons occupied about fourteen days. 
As the Crown Prince's army was push- 
ing on vigorously in pursuit, the French 
abandoned all along the route of march 
cases of biscuit, and forage wagons ; and 
the Fifth corps left behind nearly all its 
provisions, which were not enormous. 



The soldiers were in complete disorder. 
■• Never," says one writer, " had a. 
French army presented such a lack of 
discipline. The soul of the country 
seemed to have taken wings after de- 
parted victory." In the villages the 
soldiers sacked the barn-yards and 
hunted the poultry for their empty 
camp-kettles. An officer of high rank 
has recorded in his diary that he was 
attacked by two men of his own divis- 
ion, who endeavored to rob him, like 
veritable highwaymen, lie was obliged 
to use his weapons against them. The 
rains ■.. re almost incessant during the 
retreat; the army had no tents, no 
knapsacks, for nearly all had been 
tin-own away after leaving the field 
of Woerth. The men were covered 
with mud; their cartridge-boxes were 
thoroughly drenched; and, if they had 
been forced into a fight, they would have 
been overwhelmed by a new disaster. 

Tiie ablest German military critics 
vnae prodigal of condemnation for the 
Emperor's interference to prevent the 
retreat of Bazaine upon Verdun. "The 
motive," says one of these critics, 
" which prevented the Emperor Napo- 
leon from ordering the army of Metz to 
retreat at. once to join with that of Mae- 
Mahon, after the 10th of August, still 
remains an enigma. On the 10th of 
August there were at Met/, at least 
one hundred and eighty thousand good 
troops, abh to fight vigorously, espe- 
cially all those of the Imperial Guard, 
which was. without dispute, the elite of 
the French army. Metz was too poorly 
provisioned for such a colossal garrison, 
anil hunger would naturally bring about 
its capitulation. Put the place was 
sufficiently provided with food, for 
many months, for a garrison of fifty 
thousand men, and would thus have 
been practically impregnable." 



206 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



The folly and incompetence of the 
Imperial conduct of the war was again 
shown in forcing MaeMahou, when be 
was installed at Chalons, and when his 
matchless talent for organization had 
pulled together one hundred and twenty 
thousand men and four hundred cannons 
and seventy mitrailleuses, to leave a 
place where he could have turned and 
fought the enemy, which was pursuing 
him, to great advantage, and to make 
a roundabout tour across the country, 
perilously near the Belgian frontier, and 
so down, to relieve Bazaine under the 
walls of Met/.. "If MaeMahou," says 
the same German critic whom I have 
just quoted, "did not wish, or was not 
allowed, to join the army of Bazaine at 
once after the surprise of Weissenburg, 
Woerth, ami Spicheren, the best plan for 
him would have been to stay at Chalons, 
to defend the passage of the Marne, and 
offer upon that ground a battle to the 
armies of the two royal princes of Prussia 
and Saxony. He could there have con- 
centrated about two hundred thousand 
men in the days between the 24th and the 
30th of August. This army, in favorable 
positions along the Marne, would have 
been a very dangerous adversary for the 
German troops, and would have checked 
the march on Paris. If the French had been 
beaten they would still have had a line of 
certain retreat, falling back within the line 
of the forts of Paris. But if the Germans 
had been beaten their situation would 
have been desperate. In point of fact 
the Germans had at their back Metz and 
its one hundred and eighty thousand 
men. and Longwy, Montmedy, Tbion- 
villc, Toul, Phalsbourg, Strasbourg, 
Langres, Brisach, and Schlestadt, with 
their garrisons. A defeat of the Ger- 
mans in the month of August in the 
neighborhood of Chalons would have 
been the signal for an armed uprising in 



Alsatia and Lorraine, in the Vosges, and 
on the Cote d'Or." 

It is well known in France that Mae- 
Mahou yielded to the Emperor's tardy 
determination when he pushed on to 
Metz, where the fighting was pretty well 
over, with great difficulty ; but he was a 
soldier, accustomed to obey, and hisstrong 
object ions were stated only once or twice. 
That the Emperor was mainly responsible 
for the movement which culminated in the 
disgrace of Sedan, and in the blocking 
of Bazaine's army for months in Metz, 
is shown by a despatch sent from the 
Imperial head-quarters, on the loth of 
August. 1870, to the then Minister of 
War in Paris: "I send you the result 
of a Council of War, which will give you 
the measures that I have decided upon." 
As the result of this despatch the Min- 
ister of War telegraphed to .Marshal 
MaeMahou : •• In the name of the Coun- 
cil of Ministers and of the private Coun- 
cil, I beg you immediately to succor 
Bazaine, profiting by the thirty hours' 
advance that you have on the Crown 
Prince of Prussia." MaeMahou did not 
leave Chalons until the 23d of August, 
in the morning. 

Tin' Emperor, who seemed but little 
ruffled by the great events which had 
meantime taken place in the vicinity of 
Metz, went with him. The " man of 
destiny " once more shone forth in him. 
and. rattling along in his heavy campaign 
carriage, wrapped in his huge black 
cloak lined with red, he assumed his 
old Caesarian air, and, doubtless, hoped 
for a few short days that fate would be 
propitious. 

.Meantime the great events above 
mentioned were destined' vastly to mod- 
ify the campaign. On the 13th of 
August the King of Prussia moved his 
head-quarters from St. Avoid to Fal- 
quemont, or Falkenburg, as the Germans 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



207 



call it, and announced to Napoleon, by 
the reconnoissances that his troops then 
made, that he was but twenty miles from 
Metz. lie spent the night still nearer, 
at Hermy, and was there on the evening 
of the 15th also. Bazaine, who had 
been engaged in hasty movements from 
the 10th to the 13th, was suspected by 
Von Moltke of being anxious to retire to 
Verdun, and thence to Chalons, where 
he could join the vast forces which Mac- 
Mahon, who had not yet got his fatal 
orders to move forward, was bringing 
together, and where battle could be given 
in earnest. Von Moltke at once decided 
to prevent Bazaine, at any cost, from 
reaching either Verdun or Chalons, as he 
was naturally desirous of leaving the 
Crown Prince unobstructed passage 
towards Paris. He wished, also, to have 
Bazaine's army as thoroughly broken as 
possible before Metz, and 
then pushed back, so that 
Steinmetz and Friederich Karl 
could proceed forward to join 
the Crown Prince. It seems 
pretty evident that if Bazaine 
had not been occupied with 
squabbles with his officers in 
Metz he would have done all 
he could to binder the move- 
ment of retreat, so necessary 
and so wise. It was, how- 
ever, by the 14th so thorough- 
ly organized that he could not 
well interfere. 

"On the 14th," says a French 
officer, "our interminable processions 
began across the Moselle. Every soldier 
was bent double under the weight of his 
baggage. The army, which ought to 
have been as swift as the wind, might 
have been compared with its burdens 
and its absurd impedimenta to the army 
of Darius. The Emperor had gone off 
at noon, escorted by the cents gardes. 



and by a squadron of the Guides, 
through a crowd of sad and silent citi- 
zens." 

Steinmetz was already across the 
Moselle, and coming from the north 
in all haste towards Metz. Fried- 
erich Karl was hurrying up, but 
had not arrived on the mori 
of the 14th, when Steir 
whose duty it was to 
Bazaine's whole army ei 
ployed until "Karl" 
should appear be- 
tween Metz and 
Verdu n, 
attacked. 
P r i n c e 
Fried- 
erich 
Karl's 




HEAD-QUARTERS OF NAPOLEON AT CHALONS. 

road lay along the very road that 
Bazaine's army must take on its way 
to unite with MacMahon, unless lie 
was willing to give the united two 
armies battle. Bazaine endeavored to 
draw his forces from the right to the 
left bank of the Moselle as quietly as 
possible, so as not to attract the enemy's 
attention ; but as soon as the movement 



208 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

was perceived General Steinmetz pushed the continuous fire from tlie forts; and 

forward a par) of 1 he Seventh corps, General CofHuiere telegraphed to Napo- 

undcr the coinmaud of General Gotz, to Iron at Longeville, where the Emperor 

attack the rear-guard of Decaen's corps, was waiting in his cart iage: "All along 

It was quilt' late in the afternoon, and the line we remain victors. At half-past 

the Prussians were so liasty in their at- eight we arc about to charm' again." 

tack that they once or twice came under There was in fact a night charge, and 

the guns of the fortress, and were the Prussian columns, which came back 

obliged to rel ire in disorder. General stubbornly to the fight, were repulsed. 

Prossard's corps at once went to assist Napoleon was delighted, and, holding out 

Decaen, who was shortly engaged with his band to Bazaine, who came up to his 

all his men, and a desperate light ensued, carriage after this last charge, said to 

during which Bazaine continued to him : " Well, Marshal, you seem to have 

operate his retreat across the .stream, broken the charm." Meantime King 

'The slaughter was fearful on both sides, William was telegraphing to Berlin that 

and the Prussian losses, through their he had had a victorious encounter at 

own incaiitiou in getting within range of Borny, near Metz ; that the French had 

the guns of Metz, were very consider- been driven back, and that he was just 

able going on to the licit! of battle. 

Bazaine soon saw that he could not The French corps commanded by Lad- 
continue his retreat, and senl General mirault and De Failly had suffered worse 
Ladmiratilt to combat the First Pi ussian than the others, as they were on the 
corps. The Second Prussian brigade, right bank of the river, about four miles 
under General Glumer, joined to the divis- from Metz, and terribly scourged by 
ion of Generals Kameke and Wrangel, .shell. Bazaine sent over some of the 
finally drove the French Ibices in large troops, which were already in full retreat, 
numbers across the river and to the for- to help them. Steinmetz had thus s no- 
tifications of Metz, up under their ceeded in hindering Bazaine in bis 
cover. General Von Manteuffel, who retreat, but he did not attempt the dan- 
had been placed in the reserve, was then gerous task of following him up. The 
called into action, and for hours was German troops were drawn off the field 
occupied in storming the positions which at, ten o'clock, and marched to bivouac. 
tic French had taken lure and there. There they were visited by the King 
He finally forced them to quit each one, and his staff; and from Wm Steinmetz, 
but not until he had suffered heavily. Von Manteuffel. and others, the old 
For moii' than an hour and a. half he monarch learned that Yon Moltke's first 
was within range of Metz, ami his men requisite had been gained. Prayers 
were under a crushing shower of deadly wen' said, and a general season of re- 
hail; lint they on no decision flinched, joicing was entered upon. All night 
and later in theday pushed on to Borny. the watchers on the walls of Met/, could 
still nearer Metz. The greater part of bear the anthems and the chorals of the 
tic battle was fought on a plain called soldiers rising superbly clear out of the 
Metry, between Vougy and St. Barlec, darkness and distance, and wondered 
two small villages. The French were liow the armies which leal suffered such 
very confident of victory, so great were terrible losses during that afternoon 
the Prussian losses, and so telling was could muster courage to sing. The 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



209 



losses on the Prussian side were roughly 
estimated at from eight thousand to 
sixteen thousand men at the time ; the 
French on that day lost about thirty-four 
hundred men, killed and wounded. The 
vineyards, the ravines, the woods, were 
filled with Prussian bodies, and the 
slaughter would have been greater if the 
French artillery had not come to the end 
of its ammunition and been compelled to 
retire before nightfall. As in nearly all 
the battlesof the war the French artillery 
opened with a terrifying fire; then, just 
at the moment it was most needed, had 
nothing to fire with. 

All night the pale moon showed to 
the pickets of the reposing armies 
shadowy forms flitting about on the 
battle-field. These were the Prussians 
and the French delegated to secure the 
wounded and bury the dead. This was 
done in silence and in sorrow, no encoun- 
ters occurring while the solemn duty was 
performed. 

Monday, the anniversary of the birth 
of the great Napoleon, the 15th of 
August, usually celebrated in Paris with 
impressive ceremonials, brought bright 
sunshine to the fields covered with 
blackened and mangled corpses, and 
looked down upon the Emperor in swift 
retreat. Next day Steinmetz contented 
himself with skirmishes, none of which 
rose to the dignity of a battle. The care 
of the wounded, the burial of the dead, 
and the repose of the fatigued army oc- 
cupied most of the time. The King 
visited the field early in the morning and 
personally superintended the removal of 
many of the wounded. Then he wrote 
more despatches to his Queen. 

On the 15th the army of Friederich 
Karl was in full march on the road which 
furnished Bazaine his main avenue of 
escape to Verdun. There are two roads 
from Metz to Verdun, here and there 



running parallel. That upon which Ba- 
zaine had decided to retreat is the old 
Roman road, which at (iravelotte, one 
and one-fourth miles wesl of Metz, splils 
into two avenues, one leading by Don- 
eourt to Verdun ; the other through the 
villages of Rezonville, Vionville, and 
Mars-la-Tour, to the same place. Vion- 
ville, three miles from Uoncourt, is two 
and three-fourths miles west of Metz. 
Gravelotte is nearly eleven miles from 
the fortress, and is a small hamlet of 
seven hundred inhabitants, built on a 
high bluff. This height governs on the 
east the valley of the Meuse. Vion- 
ville, a simple Alsatian dorf, is six miles 
beyond. From Verdun to Metz the dis- 
tance is thirty-five miles; from Mars-la- 
Tour, which became an important point 
in the battle of the Kith, it is twenty-one 
miles; from Gravelotte to Mars-la-Tour 
is six miles, on an excellent highway. 
Rezonville, from which point the King 
of Prussia sent his famous letter to the 
Queen on the 19th, is about one mile 
directly south of Gravelotte. The coun- 
try is broken and hilly, very charming, 
and full of scenic surprises. There 
are so many little villages through which 
the next 1 Kittle was waged that the ac- 
tion of the Kith of August was called 
shortly after its occurrence by half-a- 
dozen different names. The French 
soldiers designated it either as Vionville 
or Doncourt. Bazaine's telegram, in 
which he said that he had fought the two 
great German armies from Vionville to 
Doncourt all day long, convinced the 
French that these were the proper names 
for the fight. 

Bazaine's whole army was retreating 
in remarkably good order, on Monday 
morning, when the Marsha] heard that 
Friederich Karl, advancing from Pont-a- 
Mousson, luul struck in on to the high- 
way, and placed himself in a strong posi- 



210 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



tiou on Mars-la-Tour. Bazaine could 
hardly believe that his enemy had made 
so rapid an advance, and continued cau- 
tiously, an enemy behind, an enemy in 
front, and an enemy ravaging the fair 
land to which he was endeavoring to re- 
treat, lb.' was right. Friederich Karl 
had not had time to gain this ground ; he 
had, however, sent forward the magnifi- 
cent division of Brandenburg cavalry to 
Mars-la-Tour, to hold the great column 
of Dearly two hundred thousand nun in 
check until he could come up with his 
main column. Bazaine saw the situa- 
tion at once, and ordered an attack by 
divisions, — of 1 (ecaen's the Third corps, 
Ladmirault's the Seventh. Frossard's the 
Second, Canrobert's the Sixth, and the 
fine Imperial Guard, the pride of France 
and the flower of her soldiery. The 
Brandenburgers held the furious French 
in partial check for more than six 
hours, until Friederich Karl's Third and 
Tenth corps, successfully supported by 
divisions of the Eighth and Ninth, came 
up. During this time the German cav- 
alry, according to the French authorities, 
had been fairly decimated; •■almost 
blotted out," says one writer. But now 
came the fresh German troops into ac- 
tion, rushing out of the woods upon Vi- 
onville, anil taking that village by storm. 
In front of Rezonville General Bataille 
had been wounded, and the Second corps, 
after having bravely withstood the at- 
tack, had bent back, and was probated 
in its retreat by the Third Lancers, and 
by the Cuirassiers of the Guard. 

During this movement there was a 
charge of Prussian Hussars upon some 
artillery with which Bazaine was trying 
to cover the attack of the French cui- 
rassiers, and the Marshal and his general 
staff were surrounded by the German 
troopers. Thine was a little hand-to- 
hand fighting, and the Marshal was for 



a moment or two in imminent danger of 
being taken prisoner, lint just then a 
wave of Fiencli cavalry swept up, over- 
whelming the Germans, and protecting 
the cannon which they weie trying to 
take. If Bazaine had perished on that 
day lie would have been accounted a 
hero. 

The Germans were now massed with 
their right on Mars-La-Tour. They 
had taken Vionville, and they next 
directed their attention to the village of 
Flavigny. There took place one of the 
sharpest combats of the war, the French 
batteries shelling the Prussians who were 
established in the woods near by, and 
killing them by hundreds. Much of the 
lighting was done in the large wheat- 
fields, and there the French drove back 
the assaults time and time again. The 
ripening grain was reddened with the 
blood shed in the awful shock of cavalry, 
and in the slaughter effected by the 
mitrailleuse batteries. At the west of 
the battle-field flows the river Orne, and 
the many little brooks tributary to this 
river were red with blood before the 
struggle was finished. 

Although the French showed pro- 
digious valor on this day, and on the 
whole fought with consummate skill, it 
is clear that they were taken completely 
by surprise in the morning. One of the 
Generals, who was in the retreat, affirmed 
that very day that there was not a Prus- 
sian on the whole line of march. When 
his division was attacked the horses 
were picketed and unsaddled. Prince 
Murat, in command of the first brigade, 
came out of liis tent, and went into action, 
with his napkin in bis hand. lie had 
been breakfasting as tranquilly as if be 
were at the Cafe Anglais. The decisive 
and most formidable attack of the Ger- 
mans was towards the end of the day, 
when fresh soldiers came up to grapple 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



211 



with the exhausted French. General von 
Alvensleben took two regiments of a 
cavalry division, and gave them orders 
to take the French batteries, which were 
causing such terrific losses in the German 
lines. These gallant troops swept down 
bravely to the attack on the position, 
passed through the French lines, and 
went up on to a little height, which had 
concealed from them one of the French 
divisions. Then they rushed at full 
speed along the wood of Vionville. This 
gave the French cavalry an excellent 
opportunity for attack ; and a brigade of 
dragoons and the Seventh Cuirassiers 
hurled themselves down upon the Ger- 
mans, who were stupefied by this sudden 
move. Two squadrons of the Tenth 
Cuirassiers came to harass the unlucky 
Germans from the rear, and the rout was 
complete. Oddly enough the Seventh 
Prussian Cuirassiers had a terrible con- 
flict with the Seventh French Cuirassiers 
on this day. The Sixteenth regiment of 
Prussian infantry lost its flag, and at the 
close of the action had but one hundred 
and sixty men left out of three thousand. 
On the right, towards the close of the 
day, the French had the whole advan- 
tage. The Germans still maintained 
their position in the centre. The Ninety- 
third French line was driven in by the 
Prussian Cuirassiers. Its flag was taken, 
and one piece of cannon was being 
carried off when a detachment of French 
cavalry swept down from the heights of 
Vionville, chased the Cuirassiers, took 
back the flag of the Ninety-third, and 
the cannon also. 

The day was finished with the last 
and magnificent charge of the Prussian 
cavalry on the French right, which re- 
sisted manfully; and the French, who 
had been so unhappy in all their efforts 
up to these days of mid-August, could 
justly claim that they were victors 



when night fell upon the bloody field 
of Kezonville. 

Next morning the troops were horri- 
fied at the ghastly spectacle of the 
hundreds of corpses piled in fantastic 
shapes, or here and there standing 
propped against each other, where a 
tremendous gap had been made in 
an advancing line of battle. The Ger- 
mans had lost about seventeen thou- 
sand men, and the French were not 
much better off. The French claim 
that they had only one hundred and 
twenty thousand men in the action, and 
that the Germans brought one hundred 
and eighty thousand soldiers upon the 
field. 

Bazaine at this time appears to have 
been more occupied with protecting his 
line of retreat upon Metz than in carv- 
ing his way forward to his junction 
with MacMahon. He never, say the 
soldiers who were in the fight, manoeu- 
vred as if he wished to get to Chalons. 
The army was intoxicated with success, 
and cried out to be led forward ; but 
Bazaine paid no attention to their de- 
mands. 

In these battles, as in all the others, the 
quartermaster's department was noticea- 
ble chiefly for its miserable incompe- 
tence. "On the 10th, in the morning," 
says a well known military writer, 
" the Second and the Sixth corps were 
almost entirely without food. The First 
was waiting for rations, which (he 
quartermaster's department was to send 
from Metz, and had not a day's pro- 
vision of biscuit. On the 17th an- 
other corps had nothing but rice. 
There had been no forage since the 
14th for one of the cavalry regiments, 
which had to make two charges with- 
out food for men or horses; and yet 
we were iu France, and only seven 
kilometres from a town like Metz, 



21-2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

supposed to be provisioned for a long mount the heights near Chatel ; and 

siege." between that town and Amanvilliers the 

The 17th was devoted, as the 15th slopes arc covered with trees, which 
had been, to trifling skirmishes. King run in an unbroken line from Yiou- 
William was (iii the Held, as at Borny, ville to Amanvilliers. Eastward, be- 
soon after the fight, and addressed the hind these woods, lies Verneville, and 
troops, expressing his admiration of between Verneville and Gravelotte ex- 

their conduct. If Bazaiue considered tends another w 1. Mont St. Qnentin, 

himself victorious, the Prussian King between Chatel and Metz, has a fort on 

also claimed the victory. King \Vil- its summit, and is covered by the forest 

liam is supposed to have urged on the of Sauligny, which runs behind St. Privat 

battle of the 18th, which was to he a to tile valley of the < >rne. Early in the 

final effort to sweep Bazaine from all morning the Twelfth and Ninth corps of 

the positions he had gained <m the the Royal German Guard went towards 

high-road, send him back to Met/,, Doncourt, followed by the Third and 

and make the way clear for the march Tenth corps, while the Seventh. Eighth, 

of the Germans to join the Crown and Second remained at Rezonville. As 

Prince. the first-mentioned corps went through 

At the beginning of the battle on the the woods near Verneville and St. Privat 

18th the French troops on the heights the last-mentioned attacked Bazaine's 

of St. Privat and Ste. Marie-aux-Chenes tutrenchment near Gravelotte, keeping 

received the same surprise as at Forbach up a mild attack until the others could 

on the 16th. Whole brigades of Prus- come round by Chatel and Amanville. 

sians suddenly emerged from the forests, The Ninth corps was in the battle before 

which a few hours before the French had noon; the others did not enter before 

known to be vacant. But Bazaine was four o'clock. The French held the woods 

beginning to understand this manoeuvre, so long as they were not outnumbered, 

and was ready to receive the enemy, and the Germans lost great numbers of 

At eleven o'clock the lire opened from men among the trees. The slopes, even 

both side.-, all along a very extensive on the 20th, were still covered with the 

line. Gravelotte and Rezonville, where wounded, and the unburied dead began 

Bazaine had strongly entrenched him- to smell. St. Privat and Verneville 

self, were the scene of the' most saugui- were finally taken. 
nary fighting. About noon the French The general composition of the Ger- 

soldiers saw a black mass of Prussian man army was us follows: the left 

infantry coming down from Gravelotte. wing was composed of the Twelfth Saxon 

The artillery senl a, storm of shells into corps, the Centre guard, and the Ninth 

these moving lines, and the slaughter army corps; behind these, in reserve, 

was great. The loss of life in this en- was the Brandenburg corps, whose artil- 

counter w as probably greater than in any lery came into the attack between Aman- 

other battle of the century. TheFrench ville and St. Privat, and was attached to 

soldiers had rapidly entrenched them- the Hesse-Darmstadt division, ami the 

selves, and kept up a tremendous lire Schleswig-Holstein corps. The right 

upon tin' advancing Germans. wing was on the right and left of the 

The three great roads, which radiate main road leading from Mars-la-Tour 

westward and northward from Metz, towards Metz, and consisted of the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



2 1 3 



Seventh Westphalia corps, under Stein- 
metz, and the Eighth, behind which the 
Second corps stood in reserve 

The Prussian right first took up the 
fight at Gravelotte. Meantime the cen- 
tre and left German armies swung to 
the right, and altered its front, previ- 
ously north-east, to east. The Saxons 
attacked St. Privat ; the Guards Aman- 
ville ; the Ninth corps the woods of Verne- 
ville, afterwards taking the village of the 
same name. At last, after the most 
valorous fighting, during which the Prus- 
sians were repeatedly driven back, the 
French right was driven into the centre, 
between Gravelotte and Verneville, and 
their back was threatened at Chatel. 

Towards five o'clock in the afternoon 
the fatigued and almost broken French 
soldiery were swept down upon by sixty 
thousand fresh troops. Batteries were 
suddenly unmasked to sweep the ranks 
of Canrobert's soldiers ; and the Royal 
German corps and the Tenth Prussian 
corps swarmed upon the breach made in 
the French ranks, which the Saxons were 
menacing from the rear. This was the 
dread moment of the day. The French 
fought like demons. Here a battalion 
of the Twenty-eighth line stood valiantly 
in the trendies and perished to the last 
man. General Canrobert, sword in 
hand, was in the first rank, encouraging 
and pushing on the soldiers. He kept 
up this resistance for more than two 
hours. In the gathering dusk a severe 
attack was made on Gravelotte ; but the 
French opened such a good lire that the 
ditches were tilled with the dead of the 
Second Prussian corps, which was at the 



head of the attack. This corps finally 
charged the position at the point of the 
bayonet, and after a hard tight, protracted 
until the combatants could scarcely see 
v:\c\i other, Gravelotte was surrendered, 
and the French fell a little back. As the 
darkness stole over the land the cries of 
the wounded, the crashing of the cannon, 
the flames of the burning villages and 
farm-yards, and the long lines of troops 
moving silently, and almost stealthily, to 
strengthen the positions which they had 
taken, formed a spectacle as dreadful as 
it was impressive. Marshal Bazaine was 
not in this fight at all. No one knows 
why he was not in it, for no one ever ac- 
cused him of being a coward ; but he 
was at some distance from the scene of 
action, and seemed to take but little 
interest in it. The aged King of Prussia 
narrowly escaped annihilation by inimical 
grenades twice during the fight, and his 
whole staff was at one time in imminent 
danger. After the battle, in which he 
had seen one of his favorite regiments 
entirely cut to pieces, lie slept all night 
mi a hand ambulance wagon near a house 
in Rezonville. 

Whatever the French thought of their 
stubborn resistance the Prussians had 
succeeded in effecting their purpose. 
Steinmetz had made his junction with 
the forces of Friederich Karl. The road 
seemed clear to Chalons, thence to Paris. 
Bazaine could not now retreat to Verdun. 
He had inflicted terrible losses on the 
German armies, and his troops did not 
seem a whit demoralized; but nearly all 
the positions they had held and desired 
to maintain were now in German hands. 



l'1 1 



EUROPE IN STORM A.\D CALM. 



CII A PTKR T\V ENTY-THREE. 

French and German Rumors. — The Jaumonl Quarries. — Truth ahout this Incident. — The Wounded at 

Frankfort. — Serving in an Extempore Sanitary Corps. — Paris in Confusion. — The Spy Scare. — 
Dangerous I" Speak the Truth. — A new Ministry. — Comte De Palikao. — Jules Favre's Campaign 
against the Falling Empire. — The Excited Crowds. — The Empire ends, as it began, in blood. 



A SERIES of splendid and historic 
spectacles passed before my 
gaze during the next two months. 
The whole Gentian land was tilled with 
rumors of revolution in Paris, — rumors 
as untrue at that particular time as 
they were prophetic of the honor and 
ruin which were to come. The German 
press, too, was filled with sensational 
tales of the brief campaign around Met/.. 
The carnage was ten times magnified ; 
hut one needed only to walk through 
the streets of the great towns like 
Frankfort, Darmstadt, Carlsruhe, May- 
ence, Cologne, and to see the women 
clad in black and the houses tilled with 
mourners, to realize that the shoek of 

battle had been attended with tremen- 
dous loss. 

In France the favorite pastime of 
the stay-at-home class was the inven- 
tion of dreadful catastrophes which had 
befallen the Germans. The story of 
the quarries of Jaumont was one of 
these inventions. It was said, by the 
French, that in the terrible fight which 
took place around the St. Hubert farm 
Prince Friederich Karl had sent a 
number of squadrons of his best cavalry 
headlong into some deserted quarries, 
where horses anil men fell together to 
die in lingering torture. As there was 
no occasion to lie exact in the statement 
of a loss which an implacable enemy 
had inflicted upon itself, the French 
accounts boldly declared that thirty 



thousand men had crone down into these 
quarries, and asserted that after the 
battle wagous of quicklime were thrown 
upon them ; and that Friederich Karl 
was so affected by the terrible result of 
the false manoeuvre of his cavalry that 
he was almost insane lor a day or two. 
This story even got into the English 
papers; but it had no foundation what- 
ever. In truth the quarries of Jau- 
mont actually existed, but they were 
far behind the French lines on the day 
of the attack on St. Hubert; and the 
whole story came front the great 
slaughter of Germans near another 
quarry, on the left wing of the French 
army. General Zastrow, during the 
attack, had sent up by the highway 
three batteries of a reserve of the 
Seventh army corps, escorted by the 
Fourth Uhlan regiment, so as to pro- 
tect his soldiers who were in full re- 
treat. A few minutes afterwards, men 
and horses, rushing away from the 
frightful carnage beyond, were crowded 
pell-mell into the narrow gorge through 
which the road runs, and were riddled 
with shot front the French sharpshoot- 
ers ambuscaded in the Genevieus forest. 
All those who had the bad luck to get 
into this defile, which was scarcely 
twenty yards wide, were either swept 
down by the fusillade, or crowded over 
into the quarries. The clearest ac- 
counts of this affair indicate that only 
thirty or forty horses, and perhaps 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



215 



half a hundred men, were carried over 
the edge of the defile and perished 
below. 

The Germans were not one whit be- 
hind the French in their inventive 
powers ; and all the way down to Frank- 
fort from the frontier I heard stories, 
which, while not calculated to cast 
doubt upon the valor of the French, 
were intended to show the unquestionable 
superiority of the German soldier. I 
was struck, however, with the singular 
absence of animosity against the French 
in any of the remarks of the German 
soldiers. Now that the tide had turned, 
and that the return match was to be 
played, not only the military, but the 
civil party, had taken on an air of dignity 
and seemed governed by a determination 
to say nothing ill of its ancient enemies. 
Besides, Germany was inspired by the 
knowledge that important political events 
were about to take place within her 
boundaries. The foundation of the 
Empire ; the welding of the national life 
into one homogeneous mass out of the 
union of inharmonious and petty States ; 
the triumphant vindication of the u isdom 
of Bismarck's policy of "blood anil 
iron ; " the uprising of an Imperial 
authority, which was to give the whole 
German land new burdens, but at the 
same time new strength and perhaps 
new liberties, — all these things were 
being pondered by the most intelligent 
nation in Europe with that gravity which 
is so characteristic of it ; and there was 
little rejoicing, — little, at least, that a 
stranger could observe. 

At Darmstadt we found that the 
regular trains had begun their trips once 
more ; but as each engine had to draw- 
back sixty or seventy empty carriages, 
which had gone off fdled with troops, 
we were twice the usual time in getting 
to Frankfort. I had no sooner arrived 



there than I received a notice from the 
police-office to appear at the railway- 
station at a given hour, and to be pre- 
pared to serve with the citizens of the 
sanitary committee in care of the 
wounded. This obligation was imposed 
upon all strangers staying more than 
twenty-four hours in the town ; and at 
the appointed time, therefore, I went to 
the great Main-Ncckar Station, where 
I received a red-cross badge, and was 
stationed, as if I had been a German all 
my life, at a certain point to await an 
incoming train. While I was observing 
a number of French officers and a few 
Zouaves, prisoners, who were gloomily 
smoking cigarettes in a cornel', a train 
of fifty odd cars, mainly freight-wagons, 
on the floors of which bountiful quanti- 
ties of straw had been scattered, rolled 
into the station. In these cars lay in 
bloody, and sometimes hardly distin- 
guishable, heaps, the wounded French 
and Prussians. The first few carriages 
were filled with dangerously wounded 
Frenchmen, ami, whether by accident or 
by design, [ was deputed to serve with 
a surgeon in succoring these prisoners. 
In a group was one Turco, a Zouave, a, 
captain who had lost his epaulettes and 
was stretched on the floor, and a lieuten- 
ant who had been wounded three times, 
and whose right arm was already swollen 
to twice its natural size. The native 
courtesy of these unfortunate fellows 
was admirably exemplified by their feeble 
etforts to rise when we entered the ear. 
I sat down by the captain, and when the 
surgeon had attended to his wound I 
wrote his letters, and then we talked of 
the battle, — one of the many in front of 
Metz. One officer said that in all his 
campaigns he had never seen such noble 
treatment of prisoners. 

He was presently taken out of his 
blood-stained bed of straw, and given 



216 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



new garments, plenty of breakfast, and 
even clean linen. Surgeons and physi- 
cians were few, as the great mass of 
1 1 11 • in uric at the front ; so the non-pro- 
fessional civilians were compelled to 
trust to their own slight knowledge for 
the binding of wounds. Must of the 
prisoners were wounded twice, generally 
in the arm or leg; the majority of the 
Germans once only, either in the breast, 
the head, or the lower limbs. Among 
the German troops were a number of 
Bavarians, probably the boys whom we 
had seen leaving Speyer, and many of 
these were savagely wounded, as if they 
had indulged in much hand-to-hand 
fighting. The Bavarians are to the 
German race what the Yankees are to 
the American, and have the same whim- 
sical, picturesque way of talking. One 
little fellow, scarcely tall enough to be a 
soldier, and with a childish face, had 
part of his right hand shot away. He 
hailed me for succor, and, when 1 asked 
him where he was hurt, said, "Nothing 
but a little scratch in the hand, and 
another in the lee-. But I made him 
cold, the red-breeches, — lie won't do it 
again ! " Most of these Bavarians were 
light-haired, blue-eyed boys, fresh and 
pure from the world, hut ferocious as 
tigers in battle. These boys had heard 
before leaving Bavaria that the Turcos 
carried knives, and despatched the par- 
tially wounded with them. One whole 
regiment, therefore, provided itself with 
the short, Hat knives made in the moun- 
tains of Upper Bavaria. Their colonel 
heard of this, and commanded them to 
leave tin 1 cutlery behind, whereupon they 
refused to march until they were threat- 
ened with sharp punishment unless they 
immediately obeyed. 

In this railway station at Frankfort 
Frenchmen generally received all along 
the line better care than the Prussians. 



At Frankfort keen resentment was still 
felt, against Prussia, but there was no 
open expression of it. The excited 
crowds were kept carefully back, and 
when a wounded man was strapped and 
held down to have a festering or sup- 
purating wound probed, he was cared for 
as tenderly as if he were a sou of Ger- 
many. Field-post cards were distributed, 
and gratified the prisoners more than 
anything else. They were simply 
pasteboard cards, with space for an 
ordinary letter, and printed directions 
how to send them. They were also 
during the campaign freely distributed 
to the wounded on the field or in far- 
away hospitals in a hostile country. The 
Prussian field post took them to the 
army lines, and then they wen. 1 passed on. 
In the carriages where Prussians and 
French were crowded together the best 
of feeling seemed to prevail, with one or 
two noteworthy exceptions. A Prussian 
stalked up in front of a car filled with 
Zouaves, and showed them the bullet- 
holer-, in his overcoat, they looking on 
sternly. Again, a blundering German 
surgeon cried out against treating the 
enemy so well, lint no one could have 
believed the (banians so emotional and 
excitable as this throng of civilians 
proved itself to be ill Frankfort. The 
spectacle of one stout Frenchman sup- 
porting a poor Bavarian lad, who was 
shot through the lace, and was evidently 
fast sinking, brought forth a storm of 
sobs from the ladies, and strong men 
shed tears. We had in our charge one 
Frenchman who hail been wounded three 

times, being shot OllCe through the body. 
That he was alive at all was a miracle ; 
but he persisted in being taken out of 
the car and allowed to walk across to sit 
down in the fresh air. lie was sur- 
rounded hv a dozen Germans, who ran 
hither and yon to procure whatever he 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



217 



needed, and tears ran down their faces 
when he was put upon a stretcher and 
carried away to the hospital, the surgeon 
declaring' that he could not last the day 
out. The Frenchman and German who 
had lain on the wet earth together all 
night, with the voice of the wind and the 
rain, and the shrieks of dying men, pro- 
claiming to them the necessity of peace 
and good-will, shook hands as they 
parted to go to different hospitals in 
Frankfort. The spectacle was impres- 
sive and suggestive. 

" Voyt z-vous !" said one French officer 
to me, " these Prussians lire at very 
short range. They keep advancing, 
though it seems certain death, and yet 
they always aim deliberately. They 
have lost double the killed that we have, 
but there are not so many badly wounded 
Germans as French. The Bavarians 
clubbed their muskets, — the rascals! — 
and they were as bad as our Turcos to beat 
off." There was a tragedy in epitome 
in one of the railway carriages, where :i 
tall and handsome Hanoverian officer, 
who was accused — I know not whether 
rightly or wrongly — of having given in- 
telligence to the enemy, was being taken 
under guard to Berlin, where, if the ac- 
cusation were proved against him, I 
dare say his stay upon earth was very 
short. 

When the wounded were all cared for. 
and tin' train had backed out of the 
station, I, with the other civilians, was 
relieved from service, being dismissed in 
half-military fashion. Next day I con- 
tinued my return journey to France. 
The drain of the gigantic mobilization 
was beginning to tell upon the country. 
There were but few horses in the streets. 
I shall not soon forget the droll mixture 
of pathos and humor with which one old 
gentleman told me, " My two sons and 
my two best horses are now in France. 



God help me ! " In one street in Frank- 
fort I saw-, at a very early hour in the 
morning, a regiment of rather rustic- 
looking young men march in and ground 
arms. Th'e commanding officer, passing 
down the line on a tour of inspection, 
was dissatisfied with the appearance of 
some of the troops, and. stepping up 
briskly to the offenders, he gave them 
sharp blows over the head and face, 
to which they submitted with the lamb- 
like placidity of men who could not help 
themselves. To this beating and thrash- 
ing in the German army I soon became 
accustomed, seeing plenty of it during 
thi' long period of the siege. 1 remeinl >er, 
on the day of the capitulation of the 
forts around Paris, being struck with the 
peculiar brutality of one fat officer, who, 
reviewing a line of troops on a hilly 
street in Ecouen, caned and struck the 
erring ones so vigorously that I wondered 
they did not step out of the ranks and 
riddle him with bullets. But it was pre- 
cisely this quality of passive obedience 
and endurance, of submission to punish- 
ment for the smallest infringement of 
detail, which made the German army so 
dangerous and powerful an instrument 
of invasion. 

In the fields the women were busily 
at work. The few men who had not 
beeu summoned across the frontier were 
miles away with cattle and forage teams 
providing for the army. Most of the 
peasants in the sections through which 
the armies had passed had received ten 
or fifteen soldiers nightly lor a period of 
two weeks. The compensation for bil- 
leting is very small, and the effect on 
the poor people in the little dorl's must 
be quite ruinous, although they never 
complained. Each soldier on the march 
received every day half a pound of meat, 
such vegetables as could conveniently 
be got, bread, black coffee, a little 



218 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

brandy, and some cigars, — always ci- and soon were bivouacked on a plain 
cars. The "tobacco cars." after the beside the station as tranquilly as if they 
capitulation of Strasbourg, ran regularly bad been there a week. While the battle 
from tin' towns beyond the Rhine up to of Woerth was at, its height fresh regi- 
La^ny, the point from which supplies ments were being brought up and landed 
were forwarded to the vast mass of with wonderful quickness elose to the 
troops composing the three lines stretch- scene of action. The Germans are 
ing around Paris. In the Held the fur- justly proud of their railway system, so 
nishing of provisions is organized by admirably and adroitly planned for 
battalions. Each company has its concentrating the nation on any frontier 
cooks, who follow it everywhere, pro- which is menaced. The French under 
viding their larder in the adjacent cities the Empire had begun a system radiat- 
or villages or by force or requisition in ing from Chalons towards the frontier, 
the enemy's country. Anything classa- and which, so tar as it went, was as good 
hie as luxury the soldier must procure as that of Germany. But when it was 
of his company's cooks, paying cash in well under way, the corruption and 
all cases. Tobacco was never classed as negligence of the governing powers in- 
a luxury. The French were amazed fected the military administration, and 
that the Germans ordered it for officers the system was never completed. 
ami men by requisition ; and this small From Frankfort. I returned, via Co- 
exaction incensed them more, I have logne and Brussels, to Paris, where 
sometimes thought, than the payment of everything was in wild confusion. Every 
the five milliards. In bivouac each sol- second man met upon the street or in 
dier usually cooks his own supper, — if the shops or restaurants was in uniform. 
there is time for any cooking at all, — and Every stranger was supposed to be a 
I have often seen rows of little ti replaces spy. The French, ordinarily, in outward 
dii« in I he banks extending lor twoor three manifestation at least, the most courteous 
miles along the road. The cavalry-men and obliging of European peoples to 
carry strapped behind their saddles rolls foreigners, had suddenly become infected 
of coarse bread, which both they and with suspicion. At the first this was 
their horses eat. When a long halt is amusing, but presently it became in- 
made, thousands of cavalry-men will be tolerable. It was dangerous to tell 
seen cutting bits of bread and feeding French friends or acquaintances the 
the horses. truth. They received the news of the 
The most miraculous feature of the battle of Woerth and the retreat there- 
German military discipline which I ob- from with a scepticism which was 
served during the mobilization was the painful to witness. Although the news 
celerity with which troops, and espe from their own agents confirmed the 
cially cavalry, were disembarked from truth, they still maintained that it was 
railway trains. At Landau we saw a from German sources. An occasional 
regiment of cavalry, which had jour- straggling telegram from the Emperor 
neved fifty-five hours steadily from was published broadcast in large and 
Posen, cleared from the train in eleven little journals; but it was noticed that 
minutes. It was as if by magic. The none of these despatches talked of 
moment the carriages stopped, men and victory. •• Disorder in Paris," said a. 
horses came out with automatic precision circular published early in August, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



219 



" would be victory for the Prussians." 
The fear of a Communistic outbreak 
was already plainly defined, and with 
reason. Night after night tumultuous 
crowds went to the ministries to sing the 
"Marseillaise" and the " Girondins," 
and to ask for news. Now they heard 
of the taking of* Landau, now of the 
total defeat of the Prussians, and now 
of a vigorous French advance to the 
Rhine. But, as a Frenchman of dis- 
tinction has confessed, at first no one 
was willing to believe these rumors. A 
kind of secret presentiment restrained 
even the most confident ; but after a 
time they were carried away on the top 
of popular enthusiasm. Then came the 
first news of the defeat, brought by 
foreigners returning, like myself, from 
Germany, or by letters which escaped 
with difficulty from the clutches of the 
ollicers of the Black Cabinet, as the 
Imperial Inspection Bureau of the post- 
office was called. The Emperor with 
his broken phrases — "Everything may 
be right yet;" " The enemy has ceased 
pursuit;" "The night was calm;" 
" The river was in good order," — began 
to annoy and worry the capricious 
Parisians. At the first news of the 
defeat, the Empress had returned from 
St. Cloud, where she had been sum- 
mering, directly to Paris, and assembled 
the Council of Ministers, and sent forth 
a proclamation which she signed as the 
Empress Regent. Although this docu- 
ment was extremely clever, it displeased 
everybody. This foreign woman, who 
spoke with such lightness of the flag of 
France, suddenly became obnoxious. 
The ladies who would have fallen at her 
feet a few weeks before now criticised 
her openly and boldly. Then came new 
decrees placing Paris in a state of siege, 
incorporating into the National Guard 
all valid citizens between the age of 



thirty and forty, and convoking the 
Senate and the Corps Legislatif. After 
this, Minister Ollivier thought fit to 
issue a proclamation announcing that 
the arming of the nation and the defense 
of Paris were being prepared in great 
haste. The minister added that all 
those who were anxious to have 
weapons had only to present themselves 
at the Bureau of Enlistment, and they 
would at once be sent to the frontier. 

The Corps Ligislatif met on the 9th 
of August, and M. Schneider, the presi- 
dent, had begun to read the decree of 
convocation, as this was an extraordi- 
nary session, and had just finished these 
words: "Napoleon, by the Grace of 
God and by the National Will, Emperor 
of the French," — when a prolonged and 
singular cry burst forth from the whole 
assemblage of legislators. It was as if 
the nation, by the voice of its represen- 
tatives, suddenly protested against the 
absurdity of this statement as to the 
menus of Napoleon's selection to his 
position of Emperor. M. Schneider, 
who was a man of great dignity, was so 
much astonished and so indignant that 
he crossed his arms over his breast and 
stood looking for some time defiantly at 
the assembly. Presently he finished the 
reading of the decree ; but it was noticed 
that, he omitted, as if he were very much 
disinclined to give it forth, the reading 
of the name of the Empress, signed at 
the bottom of the document. Minister 
Ollivier next tried to make a speech ; but 
the Republican Opposition was in force 
that day, and interrupted him with such 
violence, and clamored so for his imme- 
diate disappearance from the ministry, 
that he stammered and blundered, and, 
in his trouble, spoke of an army of four 
hundred and fifty millions of soldiers, 
when he meant four hundred and fifty 
thousand. He continued speakiug, al- 



220 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

though shouts of: "Less talk and the Chamber voted a law calling under 

more action;" "We have no more the flag in the active army all valid citi- 

confldence in you ; " " It is you alone zens between twenty and thirty-live 

who have lost the country," — almost years of age, and increasing from four 

drowned his voice, which was trembling to twenty-five millions of francs the 

with mingled fear and indignation, credit which had been accorded by the 

.lules Favre succeeded the unfortunate law of July 24th to families of soldiers 

minister in the tribune, and made one of the regular army, and of the Mobile 

of his most eloquent speeches, finishing Guard. General Count De Palikao, 

witli offering a resolution for the ira- whose most brilliant exploit had been 

mediate organization of the National the sacking of the summer palace at 

Guard, and the distribution of arms to Pekin, became the new chief of the 

every inhabitant of Paris who demanded ministry, which was still Imperialistic 

it lor the defense of his hearth-stone, in flavor. M. De Palikao has been very 

This was a terrible measure for the well described by a brilliant French 

Empire, since the' possession of weapons dramatic critic, who wrote an excellent 

in the people's hands meant the over- book on the siege, M. Francisque Sarcey, 

turning of the Imperial dynasty. Pres- in the following words : "The Count De 

ident Schneider protested feebly, that Palikao was a wily old gentleman, who 

the resolution was unconstitutional in its bad no trouble in making us all dupes, 

character, when a voice in a corner was He had noticed the bad effects that the 

heard. " We are not considering the boasting and lying remarks of the fallen 

constitution; we are talking about sav- ministry had produced, so he adopted 

ing the country." just the opposite method. He gave no 

The Ollivier ministry, which had been news at. all of the military operations, 

built upon lying promises, and was the Every day. after the session, he took 

work of incompetent bands, crumbled to aside two or three of his familiars, and 

pieces at this session. A cruel Order of mysteriously whispered in their ears 

the Day thus worded — "The Chamber, these enigmatic words: 'If Paris knew 

decided to sustain a. cabinet capable of what I know, it would illuminate this 

organizing the defense of the country, evening.' Or, when a member of the 

passes to the Order of the Day" — was Left, impatient at. his silence, asked of 

adopted by a great majority; ami M. the Chamber some more positive infor- 

Ollivier wenl home feeling that, hi' had mation, he would answer, ' I can say 

lived in vain. Ample proof of his un- nothing, except that everything is going 

popularity was given a few minutes on well. I can speak no longer to-day. 

afterwards, when M. Jules Simon was I have had a bullet in my chest for 

passing through the Place de la Con- twenty years, and it. prevents me from 

corde. Returning home from the session making long speeches.' " In thisephem- 

bis carriage was stopped, and the crowds eral ministry, which was destined to 

clamored for news. " Citizens," said disappear in the great, glad, and pacific 

M. Simon. •' I should like to have much tumult of a few days later, M. Clement 

good news to give you. but I have only Duvernois, a journalist of some distinc- 

one bit, — the Ollivier ministry exists no tion. who had been won over to the 

longer." A great shout of joy went up Empire, and who had been paid enor- 

from the waiting crowds. Next day, nions sums, as the Imperial documents 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



221 



at the Tuileries afterwards showed, 
for writing up the Empire in his journal, 
was minister of agriculture. Baron 
Jerome David, devoted to the Empire, 
and a determined enemy of liberty in all 
its forms, was in a prominent post ; and 
the ministry of Foreign Affairs was held 
by the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne. 
But the populace cared for nothing hut 
the ministry of war, and poor Count De 
Palikao led a sad life until lie was dis- 
missed out of public notice by the decla- 
ration of the Republic. 

The first definite outcropping' of the 
Commune was in mid-August, when an 
energetic attack was made on some 
firemen's barracks on the Boulevard de 
la Villette ; and the insurgents were 
almost successful in getting possession 
of some rifles, but, failing in this, re- 
treated upon Belleville, calling the citi- 
zens all along the roads to arms. Oddly 
enough they were mistaken for Prus- 
sians, for the women and children of the 
Belleville quarter were firmly persuaded 
that the Germans were close at hand, 
the moment they saw guns and pistols 
and signs of fighting. In this foolish, 
almost criminal effort to provoke civil 
war the veteran revolutionist Blanqui, 
who had spent the greater part of his 
life in prison, was implicated. The chief 
actors in this little insurrection were 
court-martialled, and six of them were 
sentenced to be shot ; most of the others 
to different terms of imprisonment. 
Michelet and George Sand both protested 
against the execution. During the sec- 
ond week in August, the Parisians 
managed to catch a veritable Prussian 
spy. alter having arrested innumerable 
foreigners in their search for spies ; and 
this officer was shot in one of the court- 
yards of the Military School on the 
Champ de Mars on the 27th of August, 
at six o'clock in the morning. He boldly 



declared that he had been sent by his 
government to secure the plans of for- 
tresses and the preparations of defense 
in the south of France, and, a mo- 
ment before he was shot, he slowly 
pronounced the words, Ll Fur Vater- 
land." 

Meantime scattered and imperfect 
news of the gigantic battles around 
Metz came into the capital ; lint it was 
so indisputably true that the French had 
in the majority of these encounters held 
their own bravely and inflicted tremen- 
dous losses on the enemy that these 
later reports were not considered dis- 
couraging. The Parisians of all classes 
lived in constant expectation of a de- 
spatch which should announce the crush- 
ing of the Prussian invaders between 
two great French armies and the close 
of the campaign in the hasty retreat of 
the Germans across the frontier which 
they had violated. M. de Girardin 
wrote in his journal about conducting 
the Germans back to the Rhine with the 
blows of musket-butts on their backs. 
The only man who seemed to have a 
clear and definite notion of tin- situation, 
and to have the courage to speak the 
truth about it at all times, was the aged 
M.Thiers. He became a member of the 
Committee of Defense, on the L'Tth of 
August. I sometimes think that he 
had private sources of information, 
which he did not avow, for he was cer- 
tainly better informed than nine-tenths 
of the politicians who surrounded him. 
When the question of sending MacMahon 
with his army of Chalons into the north- 
east was discussed, he spoke out ear- 
nestly against it. " This," he said. " is 
taking our last army and sending it to 
perish in the Ardennes. You have got 
one marshal blockaded," he told them ; — 
" you will soon have two." 

The discussion as to the movements 



•222 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

of the armies in the field was renewed Paris. A thrill of excited suspense was 

with much violence for several days after visibleon all sides. Everybody bought 

this debate of the "27th; and M.Thiers papers, papers, papers, and read the 

lias left it on record that, while he was flaming editorials, printed in huge letters, 

making an energetic speech about one with a line and a half to each paragraph, 

o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the until they were tired. The theatres were 

3d of September, M. Jerome David took deserted, despite Madame Agar's attrac- 

liini by the hand and whispered in his five rendering of the •• Marseillaise." 

car, ■• M. Thiers, do not go any farther Even the Theatre Francais had but, a 

at present. I would like to speak with slight, audience. The environs of the 

you a moment." The session of the Corps Ldgislatif were crowded with news- 
Council «as at once brought to a close, hungry people. * Mi Saturday, about 
and M. David and M. Thiers stepped noon, numerous processions of workmen, 

down into the street together, when the moving quietly, were observed with 

former said, " The Emperor is a pris- some apprehension. But these people 

oner; MacMahon is mortally wounded." explained that they were organizing 

M. Thiers stood quite still for a few min- themselves into military companies for 

utes, struck with consternation, and the defence of the city. Now and then 

quite stupefied ; but he could, without a man was heard violently declaiming 

fear of reproach, truly have said, " I against the government because it had 

could have told you that this would hap- not given the people guns. " Here are 

pen." eight hundred thousand men in Paris," 

In the morning a Council of Minis- said one speaker, '■native to the soil, 

ters was held at the Tuilerics, and a. strong-armed, intensely patriotic, asking 

despatch, coining through the Ilavas for guns to drive the invaders from the 

Agency, brought the news from Brussels ; doors, and the government snys, -You 

but it was carefully kept from the people, must fold your arms and be shot down.' " 

There was a not her session at live o'clock, Late in the afternoon, the terrible news 

and then the Empress, who had refused began to be known. First came a report, 

up to that time to believe the unlucky which ran through the cafes and along 

truth, herself laid before the minister the the boulevards like a flash of lightning, 

despatch of the Emperor, saying, "The that Belgian neutrality had been vio- 

army has capitulated, and I am a pris- lated, that French and Prussians had 

oner." All this time, the populace was fought on Belgian soil, and that new 

rejoicing at the Stock Exchange over complications were likely to arise. 

telegrams ai uncing that the French Presently, pale-faced messengers be- 

arniv had gained another advantage upon gan to ani\e from the Place de la Con- 

the enemy; but the popular sentiment corde at the great universal rendezvous 

was reflected in a remark made to me on of the Parisian loafers of distinction, the 

that morning by a Parisian, who said, section between the Cafe de la Pais and 

with a bitter smile. " If we gain such the Cafe Piehe, announcing that, the 

meat victories, why don't the generals Corps Ldgislatif were going into secret 

send a few prisoners to the capital?" session: that the whole of MacMahon's 

This was Saturday. On Friday evening, army had been taken; that he himself 

as I walked through tin' city, T felt that, had been shot through the body; that 

some gnat calamity was overwhelming General Dc Wimpffen had disgracefully 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



223 



capitulated ; and, Anally, that the Em- 
peror was a prisoner. 

Meantime the Empress had sent M. 
Merimee, a literary man of infinite 
talent, and who was her intimate friend, 
to supplicate M. Thiers 
to take the government 
into his hands. As M. 
Merimee did notsucceed, 
she sent in M. de Metter- 
nich ; but he had no bet- 
ter hick with the fiery 
old man, whose diminu- 
tive figure was now be- 
ginning to assume the 
importance it deserved in 
the eyes of his disorgan- 
ized countrymen. MM. 
Jules Simon, Jules Favre, 
Picard, and others urged 
M. Thiers to accept the 
E in p re ss's proposition 
when he came down to 
the session of the Corps 
Ligislatif on the 3d. Hut 
M. Thiers was deaf to all 
entreaties, and seemed 
to be looking beyond 
with prophetic gaze to 
greater events, for which 
he wished to save all his 
stock of strength. At 
the session, the Count De 
Palikao astonished all his 
colleagues by the refresh- 
ingly cool manner in 
which he climbed into the 
tribune, and announced 
that Marshal Bazaine, after a vigorous fight 
of eight or nine hours, had been obliged 
to retreat under the walls of Metz. lie 
added, as if it had been a matter of 
trifling consequence, that there had been 
a battle at Sedan, " and we have thrown 
a part of the Prussian army into the 
river Mouse ; but finally we were, it 



appears, overwhelmed by numbers, 
ami some few of our soldiers have been 
crowded over into the Belgian ter- 
ritory." This effrontery was speedily 
unmasked by Jules Favre, who said that 




THE END OF THE EMPIRE. 
ASSAULT BY POLICE ON 
CITIZENS IN THE BOULE- 
VARD BONINTROUVELLE. 



the time had come to know where the 
government was. " Where," he said, 
'• is the Emperor? Is he in commu- 
nication with his ministers? Can he 
give orders to them?" The minister of 
war answered "No." "Then," said 
Jules Favre with his finest irony, " the 
answer that the Minister of War has 



224 



EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 



given me suffices, ami we may leave 
this great question out of the debate, 
the government having ceased to exist." 
Here the president of the assembly 
thought it his duty to protest against 
such words, whereupon Jules Fa vie 
turned upon him like a lion, and said: 
" Protest as much as you wish, Mr. 
President. Protest against fate, which 
has betrayed us; deny events; say that 
we arc victors; do as you like; hut 
what we want now, and what is indis- 
pensable ami wise, is the effacing of all 
parties before one name representing 
Paris, a military name, the name of a 
man who can take in hand the defense 
of the country." These remarks pro- 
duced great agitation, and shortly 
afterwards the session broke up, after 
having voted a night sitting. 

It was one o'clock in the morning when 
tin- deputies met again. Outside the 
palace of the Corps Lirjislatif, thousands 
upon thousands of men and women were 
waiting. — waiting for they knew not 
what, too anxious, lest the next few 
hours might bring the horrors of civil 
war, for it was no secret that Blanqui, 
Delescluze, Felix Pyat, Vermorel, Mil- 
life re, and others, who were destined to 
be so famous or infamous in the Insur- 
rection of 1871, were hard at work trying 
to organize a. popular revolt. Without 
any preliminary rhetoric, the Minister 
of War made an official announcement 
to the deputies of the capitulation of 
the army, and I lie fact that the Emperor 
Ian! delivered himself up as prisoner. 
Without making any suggestion or 
apology he stepped down from the 
tribune and took his seat. Jules Favre 
immediately arose, and, taking the place 
left vacant by the Minister of War, asked 
permission to make a proposition. As 
soon as he had received permission, he 
said, ■• We ask of the Chamber im- 



mediate consideration for the following 
motion : — 

" ' Article 1. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
ami his dynasty are declared divested of the 
powers that the Constitution had conferred upon 

tin in. 

•' • Article 2. There shall lie named by 
the Corps Legislatif a government committee 
composed of a certain number of members 
taken from the majority, who shall lie invested 
with the powers to govern, anil who shall have 
for their express mission resistance to the 
uttermost to the invaders, ami the delivery of 
the territory out of the enemy's hands. 

"'Article 3. General Trochu is main- 
tained in his post as Governor-General of the 
city of Paris. ' " 

This motion, signed by till the members 
of the Republican Opposition, was at 

first received in profound silence ; but 
M. Favre, before he left the tribune, 
recommended the deputies to sleep over 
it, and " to-morrow," he said. •• at noon, 
we shall have the honor to give you the 
imperious reasons which appear to us to 
recommend the adoption of the meas- 
ure to every u 1 patriot." The night 

session had lasted just twenty minutes. 
"It seemed," said one of the men who 
was present, " as long as a century." 

A singular thing happened on this 
morning of the -1th of September: as 
Jules Favre was going home, the crowd 
followed him, shouting out insults for the 
fallen Empire, and clamoring for the 
declaration of the downfall of the dy- 
nasty. When Jules Favre had passed 
along, the crowd remained shouting, dis- 
cussing, singing, ami quarrelling, until 
the police thought it necessary to clear 
the people away from the Pont de la 
Concorde. This provoked the people, 
who were already in a stale of tremen- 
dous excitement ; there was some rough 
handling of the police agents ; an alarm 
was sounded ; the gates of the Tuileries, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



225 



the Place du Carrousel, and the Louvre 
were closed ; the troops were confined to 
barracks ; the agitation reached the 
grand boulevards, and opposite the 
Gyrnnase Theatre, a squad of police, 
who evidently thought they were to be 
attacked, discharged their revolvers into 
a dense crowd, and then fell upon the 



people, sword and club in hand. There 
were numerous victims. 

" The Empire," said one of the eye- 
witnesses of this affair near the Gyrn- 
nase, "was destined to finish as it had 
begun, — with an attack upon an un- 
armed mass." 



226 



EUllOl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. 



The Declaration of the Republic. — Exciting Scenes on the Place de la Concorde and the Boulevards. — In- 
vasion of the Corps Ltgislatif. — ( lambetta Pronounces the Downfall of the Imperial Family. — The 
Procession to the Hotel de Yille. — The Flight of the Empress. 



SATURDAY night was an anxious 
time for the members of the Repub- 
lican Opposition in the Corps Ldgislatif. 
They plainly saw that they were to lie 
left alone to build up a government on 
the ruins into which the Empire had sud- 
denly crumbled, and they dreaded lest 
some sudden excitement, some misunder- 
standing, should bring about civil war 
and anarchy, which the disciples of the 
repressive theory had predicted as certain 
the moment that the weights were re- 
moved. As you cannot touch pitch 
without being defiled, so the Republi- 
cans of ardent convictions and linn 
principles, by the very necessity of neigh- 
borhood dining the long period of the 
Empire, had become in some measure 
infected with the Imperial notions of 
'• order," and they were almost inclined 
to distrust themselves at the moment 
that power was to be placed in their 
hands. 

Nothing dreadful, however, happened 
during Saturday night. Policemen were 
hustled and bonneted, and some of them 
might have been thrown into the Seine 
had they not, in obedience to the dicta- 
tion of the crowds, thrown away their 
rapiers and tied to their homes to get rid 
of their hated uniforms as soon as 
possible. Pietri, the Imperial Prefect 
of Police, who was almost universally 
execrated, was loudly called for by the 
masses, ami, had he been imprudent 
enough to show himself, might have 
been torn to pieces. I heard his name 



mentioned hundreds of times during :, 
walk through these excited crowds on 
the Saturday evening in question. Singu- 
larly enough no one seemed to know 
where Pietri was. Some said lie was 
with the Empress at the Tuileries ; others 
that lie was arrested with Napoleon at 
Sedan, and that the German government 
was to give him the worst fate that could 
befall him, — delivery into the hands of 
those whom he had so long persecuted. 
Foreigners were not much to the taste of 
these crowds, and Americans and Eng- 
lishmen sometimes found themselves 
surrounded by mobs, who insisted on 
hearing them sing a bar of the " Mar- 
sellaise," and shout for the Republic. 
In case, they refused to give these proofs 
of their good-will, they were hustled and 
sometimes carried off to the police sta- 
tions as presumed spies. Many people 
in these throngs had guns, and some 
were armed with revolvers. This wear- 
ing of weapons by people who would 
have considered such a proceeding as 
improper had they been living under a 
different system was adopted as the 
first symptom of liberation from the 
rigime which had now been definitely 
condemned, and was soon to be suc- 
ceeded by a more liberal one. 

The Empire, which had made so many 
objections to letting private citizens bear 
arms or keep them in their houses, had 
in 1868 done the very thing which ren- 
dered the insurrection of 1.S71 so easy. 
It had created the National Guard Mo- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



227 



bile, which was about five hundred and the capital. There were comprised with- 

fifly thousand strong, divided into bat- in the limits of this organization all 

talions, companies, and batteries. This classes of society, — the rich shop-keeper 

force was created by Napoleon III. on and professional men of the Rue de 

the proposition of Marshal Niel, who la Pais and the Opera Quarter, the. house 

was then Minister of War, and in virtue owners and the retired merchants of the 




TILE IMPERIAL POLICE PROTECTED BY TILE REPUBLICAN GUARD. 



of a law voted by the Corps Ldgislatif 
on the 1st of February, 1868. The 
maximum effective of each battalion of 
this National Guard was two thousand 
men, forming eight companies of two 
hundred and fifty men each, at the time 
of the downfall of the Empire ; and for 
nearly the whole of the period of the 
siege of Paris and the Commune, almost 
three hundred thousand men of this Na- 
tional Guard were within the walls of 



Place Venddme and the Champs Elysees, 
as well as the half-educated and am- 
bitious artisans of Belleville and La 
Villette. These elements, hostile to each 
other, — the same elements, which by their 
inharmonious clashing in previous periods 
of trouble had caused bloodshed and 
temporary anarch}', ■ — ■ were to be cooped 
up in a besieged city for long months, 
their really splendid forces never to be 
utilized against the enemy because their 



228 



EUROPE IX STORM AND f.\LM. 



commander feared that if they won a 
battle against the Germans they would 
turn about and proclaim a government of 
their own in Paris. It is not astonishing 
that these classes, hating, almost abomi- 
nating eaeh other, finding themselves 
equally well armed, and having had their 
senses excited by the continuous specta- 
cle of the ravages of war, should have 
come together in hostile collision after 
the great struggle against the enemy was 
over, and while the wreckage of the war 
was being cleared away. 

Representatives of the upper and of 
the lower classes of Parisian society, 
equipped in their uniforms of the Na- 
tional Guard, and with their muskets on 
their backs, were very numerous among 
the crowds on Saturday night. The 
property-holding class was on the alert, 
and had taken possession of all the ap- 
proaches to the Corps Legislatif, and 
managed to keep its ground on Sunday 
morning, although M. Jules Simon tells 
us that when lie came to pick his way 
through the throng waiting in front of 

the Palais Bourb at eleven o'clock on 

the morning of the -lth of September, the 
adherents of Planqui and Delescluze, the 
Communists, in short, were very thick 
about the gates and door-ways. In the 
eyes of these passionate and vindictive 
apostles of a socialistic government, the 
members of the Left, who were very pop- 
ular among all other classes, were con- 
demned as •• Moderates," and as men to 
be despised. Many an artisan, who 
afterwards appeared behind the barri- 
cades of the Commune, hurled scornful 
reproaches at Simon and his colleagues 
as they made their way into the mid-day 
session. 

The impression on the grand boule- 
vards, which were blocked with immense 
throngs of the wealthy and prosperous 
class on Sunday morning, was that there 



would he civil war before nightfall. To 
walk through these collections of chatter- 
ing, gesticulating, pale-faced people, and 
to hear them furiously disputing each 
other's notions, enabled one to place 
but moderate reliance upon their com- 
bined action, if such action were nec- 
essary. The enemy was at the door ; 
Mont Valerien was insufficiently armed ; 
General Vinoy was coining to Paris 
with an army which must be taken care 
of; the cartridges in the Imperial arse- 
nals were tilled with sand : what was 
to be done? Would the movement for 
a Republic degenerate into mere noise, 
and bloodshed, and stupid efferves- 
cence of ignorant enthusiasm? A little 
before noon, on this lth of September, 
the papers made the announcement of 
the Emperor's surrender, very generally, 
and nearly every man and woman whom 
one met on the boulevards or on the Place 
de la Concorde had purchased a paper, 
and was leading it intently. There was 
no laughter, but little noise, and no 
jostling. The crowds grew in numbers 
momentarily. Every one was in an at- 
titude of suspense, to which was added a 
cei tain fear, the fear of that spectre 
which had arisen so many times with 
bloody hands to push back that liberty, 
so longed for, lint seemingly so unat- 
tainable in France. 

Jules Simon says that at noon on the 
4th of September a single misunder- 
standing, an angry movement on the 
part of a commander of any troops, 
would have been sufficient to occasion 
a general massacre. " What we had to 
avoid at any price," he says, " was 
civil war, the people of France against 
the French, while the soil was in- 
vaded by the stranger. This was the 
opinion of the Left, who, felt that 
the throne had tumbled to pieces; and 
it was also the opinion of the majority, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



229 



who understood that the throne could 
no longer be defended, and who had 
ceased to wish that it might. It was 
doubtless this thought, that there was 
no longer any Empire, and that the 
supreme duty was to avoid a collision, 
which tempted the deputies of the ma- 
jority to demand that the regular troops 
should be removed from the Palais 
Bourbon." 

This measure having been executed, 
the National Guard was placed in pos- 
session. The officers and soldiers of 
the regular troops were in a delicate 
position. They had heard that the lie- 
public had already been proclaimed at 
Lyons and Marseilles, and that there the 
army had fraternized with the people, 
but they were still under the shadow of 
their oath of allegiance to the Empire, 
and, ignorantof the real course of events 
beyond the walls of Paris, they were in- 
capable of forming a speedy decision. 
Still, at the Napoleon Barracks, the 
crowd which had cried out u Yive hi B4- 
publique!" to die soldiers at the win- 
dows was answered by the same words. 
A little later on, a regiment which had 
been sent to the square of the Hotel de 
Ville disbanded, tinned the butts of its 
muskets into the air, and mingled with 
the crowd. This was soon heard on the 
Place de la Concorde, and hundreds of 
soldiers broke ranks and disappeared 
right and left. 

Now came in long procession thou- 
sands of workmen and workwomen 
from La Villette, the women marching 
arm-in-arm with the men, singing loudly, 
and generally carrying a flag in one 
hand. Tricolored badges began to ap- 
pear, and were sold by thousands, the 
boldest putting them on at once, others 
carrying them in their hands, as if wait- 
ing for a decisive moment. I saw a 
young man climb on to the statue of 



Strasbourg, in the Place de la Concorde, 
and crown the rather gloomy ligure 
which personates the ravished city with 
laurel. This was the origin of the cus- 
tom which has since been so religiously 
maintained — that of decorating with 
wreaths and immortelles, with flags, and 
with crowns of laurel, this statue year by 
year. 

Along the great Place the rumor 
ran that the Corps Ligidatif was to 
receive the abdication of the Empress at 
one o'clock. " Why," said a huge mar- 
ket-woman, dressed in her best, and 
with an umbrella which was large enough 
to cover a dozen people, " why should 
the woman abdicate when we have abdi- 
cated her? " 

Every half hour or so the crowd surged 
back from side to side, leaving a path 
clear for regiments just coming in from 
Lyons, or Turcos, newly arrived from 
Algeria, - — men who had been hurried up 
to be thrown against the Prussians, and 
who were destined ingloriously to remain 
inside of Palis or just outside its walls 
for months thereafter. Towards one 
o'clock, ten thousand men from the 
Faubourg St. Martin came down the 
grand boulevards, each man with a gun 
on bis shoulder, and the shop-keepers 
immediately began to put up their shut- 
ters. Inside, in the great court-yard of 
tle j Palais Bourbon, the members of 
the Opposition and of the majority stood 
trembling with excitement, while Jules 
Favre, with his long black hair thrown 
back, and his brows covered with per- 
spiration, made a tremendous radical 
speech, intended to ingratiate the blue 
and white Moused men swarming up to his 
extemporized platform, which they at 
last broke down. The Deputies were 
informed that at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand men were assembled on 
the Place de la Concorde ; that full-v 



230 



EUROTE IX STORM AND CALM 



one-fourth of them were armed ; that 
the faubourgs were out; that blood 
was up; that the people had come 
to claim its own peaceably, <>r with 
clamor and bloodshed, as they might 
decide. 

In the great Salle des Pas Perdus, 
Jules Favre towered up above the other 
deputies, who were inspired to calmness 
by the serenity of his face. It was ob- 
served that many members of the late 
triumphant and Imperial Right were 
missing. Many had tied under various 
pretexts; some, that they had gone to 
learn the real facts of the affair at 
Sedan, others, to look after their prop- 
erty, which was in danger, as it lay on 
the line of the German army's march. 
But few of them had, like the members 
of the Senate, the courage to disappear 
without any bravado. By-aud-by the 
doors of the legislative hall were thrown 
open, and the Left entered tranquilly in a 
body, with Father Raspail blowing his 
nose very like a sonorous trumpet of de- 
fiance. The session was opened shortly 
after one o'clock, and M. De Palikao, 
with his usual coolness, stepped briskly 
into the tribune, and proposed that a 
council of government of National De- 
fense should be constituted, consisting 
of live members, each member being 

named by an absolute majority of the 
Corps L4gislatif; that the ministers 
should lie named under the auspices of 
the members of this Council ; and that 
General Count De Palikao should be 
the Lieutenant-general of the Councils. 
The tempest which this piece of ef- 
frontery raised is I letter imagined than 
described. The uproarious and con- 
temptuous laughter with which De Pali- 
kao's project was finally greeted must 
have convinced him that it would he in- 
judicious to press it. The Left, took 
immediate advantage of the situation, 



and, after a speech of Jules Favre, M. 
Thiers offered his project of law, which 
was, " that, in view of the present circum- 
stances, the Chamber shall name a com- 
mission for government and national 
defense, and the constitutional assem- 
bly shall be convoked as soon as events 
will permit." 

It was at this moment that Gambetta, 
who had not played a, very conspicuous 
part in the proceedings of the last few 
days, appeared upon the scene, and in a 
vigorous speech insisted that the Cham- 
ber should decide upon M. Thiers's prop- 
osition forthwith. He took into his 
hands the business of the day. As the 
result of his speech the Chamber voted 
urgency on the propositions, and sent 
them before a committee. Meantime 
the session was suspended. It is prob- 
able that on this Committee of National 
Defense certain members of the old 
Imperial party would have been placed, 
if, while the proposition was under con- 
sideration, the crowd had not stepped iu 
and given the final tumble to the card- 
house of the Empire. 

The manifestation which ended in the 
invasion of the Coiys lAgislalif was be- 
gun by a. company of National Guards, 
who were standing near the iron railing 
in front of the palace, and who cried out 
•• /,!/ Dicliiance! Ln DMieance!" or the 
impeachment of the Imperial family. 
While they were shouting, they beckoned 
to other National Guards nearer the 
bridge over the Seine at this point to 
come and join them. The Municipal 
cavalry, which were posted at the en- 
trance of the bridge on the quay, drew 
its sabres, and for a moment there was 
danger of a sanguinary collision. But 
tiie battalions of the National Guard 
kept crowding on and on, without re- 
gard for the naked sabres, and the crowd 
pressed behind them, now murmuring. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



231 



The soldiers saw that it was dangerous 
to resist them. 

At the head of the National Guard 
were many men of distinction and posi- 
tion, among them M. Edmond Adam, 
later a senator and influential member of 
the Republican party. The hum rose 
slowly and almost majestically until 
burst out into a great cry of " Vive 
Republique ! " This was carried bad 
ward across the Place de la Coucor 
and up the boulevards, the people 
some distance from the scene natura 
supposing that the Republic 
had been declared. Pres- 
ently, the doors of the Legis- 
lative Palace were burst open, 
and the impetuous 
throngs rushed in, 
pushing aside, as if 
they had been made 
of straw, the few 
guardians at the doors. 
The president, M. 
Schneider, pale as a 
ghost, stood looking 
down on the motley 
collection of individ- 
uals, who suddenly had 
space in front of him. But he said 
no word. 

M. Cremieux, a Republican, univer- 
sally respected by all classes and very 
popular among the masses, popped up in 
his place, and said, " My dear friends, 
you all know me. I am Citizen Cre- 
mieux. We are very busy, just now." 
But it was not M. Cremieux's day, for 
there was a roar of " Vive la Eepub- 
lique!" and he sat down, looking some- 
what disconcerted. In the galleries, 
which were now thronged with men in 
blouses, and with men in broadcloth, the 
same cry of " Vive la Rtpublique" was 
heard, and thegraceful foldsof atricolored 
flag were waved above the assembly. 



Gambetta next came forward, and 
with a few skilful sentences brought 
order out of this chaos, which promised 




THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUPS LfiGISLATIF 
WATCHING THE INVASION. 

to be so dangerous. " Citizens," he 
said, " you can now offer a grand spec- 
tacle — that of people uniting order with 
liberty." He then gave a quick and 



2.°) 2 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



picturesque sketch of what the assembly 

expected to do, and suggested that a 
group of citizens should take the re- 
sponsibility of maintaining order into 
ils own hands, so that the deputies might 
not be disturbed in the discharge of their 
duties. President Schneider thought it 
proper to second the proposition of 
Gambetta ; but when lie added that he 
thought he had also rendered to the 
country and to liberty service enough to 
have the right to address them, there 
were derisive cheers, which were echoed 
through the halls outside, aud which left 
Iii in no whit in doubt as to his loss of 
prestige. Presently, the great door op- 
posite the tribune, which had defied the 
efforts of the invaders, opened, aud the 
deputies who tried to keep backthecrowd, 
were upset; many of them were hurled 
over the desks, and nothing could be 
heard but " Vive hi U&publique!" M. 
Schneider thought it imprudent to re- 
main longer, and he was scarcely out of 
his presidential desk before half a dozen 
citizens were in it; and they would have 
done him mischief could they have got 
at him. It was said, on the afternoon 
of this day, that he had received a blow 
on the head from a citizen who was 
somewhat the worse for absinthe, and 
that he fell covered with blood and was 
taken away by his colleagues ; but this 
was subsequently proved to be untrue. 
There was much ringing of the presiden- 
tial bell by young workmen, who wanted 
to make speeches to the crowd ; but 
Jules Favre drove out all these intruders, 
and, finally, Gambetta, in his most im- 
pressive tones, cried, '-Have you any 
confidence in your representatives?" to 
which the rather illogical answer came. 
" Yes, yes; we have confidence enough 
in you." — "Well, then, retire when I 
ask you to do so, and be sure that we shall 
pronounce the downfall ! " — " Yes, but 



how about the Republic ? " cried a 
voice. 

Eye-witnesses of this singular scene 
say that at this question Gambetta, who 
had been halting between two opinions 
all the morning, and who was intensely 
anxious that this revolution should be 
accomplished within the strict limit of 
the law, suddenly assumed a new de- 
meanor, as if he felt that the mantle of 
his mission had fallen upon him, and, 
stepping forward and commanding si- 
lence by that imperious gesture which 
afterwards became so familiar to the 
people of France, he said, " Citi- 
zens, "—and at his first word the si- 
lence was completely reestablished, — ■ 
"considering that the country is in dan- 
ger, considering that the proper time has 
been given to the national representatives 
to pronounce the downfall of the Impe- 
rial family, considering that we are 
and that we constitute a regular power 
issued from universal suffrage, we now 
declare that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
and his dynasty have forever ceased to 
reign in France." 

These ringing words, uttered by the 
man who had been the first to brave the 
auger and the vengeance of the Empire, 
and who had begun the revolution which 
now culminated, were saluted with bravos 
innumerable and with renewed shouts 
of " Vive la Ttipublique ! " "No more 
Empire;" "The Empire has fallen 
forever; " "The D4cliiam.ee first, theRe- 
public afterwards," etc. Now the drum- 
mers of the National Guard, who had 
been standing at the entrance of the 
Chamber, began to beat their drums, 
and to clamor for immediate departure 
for the Hotel de Yille. This sounded 
ominous, and Jules Favre made au 
earnest speech, which he finished by 
saving, " Do you, or do you not, waut 
civil war? " 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



233 




234 



EUROPE /,V STOR.V AND CALSf. 



Hundreds- -of voices answered, " No, 
no; not civil war; war with the Prus- 
sians only." — "Then," said Jules Favre, 
"we must have a provisional gov- 
ernment forthwith." — "To the Hotel 
de Ville! To the Hotel de Ville ! " 
cried a voice. M. Favre continued 
speaking until a youth suddenly appeared 
in the tribune behind him, and shouted 
at the top of his voice, " The Republic ! 
the Republic ! Let us declare it here ! " A 
few <>f the National ( iuards tried to make 
this enthusiastic youth come down ; but 
he pounded the desk and continued to 
shriek, "The Republic! The Republic 
forthwith!" Presently, a voice below 
took up the retrain ; and then it was 
that Gambetta stepped forward, and 
said, "Yes; long live the Republic! 
Let us go, citizens, and proclaim it at 
the Hotel de Ville ! " Down upon their 
knees went quick-witted citizens, marking 
upon great sheets of paper that they 
had taken from the deputies' desks, 
"To the Hotel de Ville!" "The Re- 
public is declared." One gentleman 
even wrote — and Heaven and himself 
only know why, — on a placard, this 
statement, " The Republic is proclaimed 
by 185 votes against 113." But there 
was really no voting at all. No one 
ventured to vote against the people's 
wish. 

As the men in blouses bearing the 
placards came toiling up the boulevards, 
the excitement was very great. Return- 
ing hastily from the Place de la Con- 
corde, I was at the Grand Hotel just in 
time to see a regiment of soldiers, which 
was marching steadily down the boule- 
vards, met face to face by a solid mass 
of blue-bloused and solid-looking men, 
singing loudly and brandishing their 
guns. No one knew what was the inten- 
tion of either party, and people on the 
sidewalks were beginning to run away, 



when suddenly the leader at the head of 
the crowd of workmen reversed his 
musket. His example was followed by 
the thousands behind him, and in a 
minute the regiment of soldiers coming 
the other way bad done the same thing. 
In less than two minutes, soldiers and 
people were fraternizing together with 
twigs of laurel in the muzzles of their 
guns. Hands were clasped in token of 
friendship ; and an old Frenchman near 
me said, " This is the grandest specta- 
cle ever seen in France." 

The relief from suspense was very 
great, and when it became generally 
known that the army bad made no en- 
deavor to prevent the accomplishment 
of the Revolution, men, women, and 
children, delicate aged ladies, shop- 
keepers, professional men, foreigners — 
all went pell-mell to the Tuileries, where 
the people had gathered in its might, as 
it had gathered twice before at the 
downfall of arbitrary power within less 
than ninety years. 

At the Tuileries there were very few 
signs of life at the windows of the Impe- 
rial Palace, but there were anxious 
hearts within. The Empress had main- 
tained her courage remarkably well up 
to the last moment. She bad been 
determined from the first that the Em- 
peror should not return to Paris. "He 
would be murdered," she said. Vet 
she appears to have had little fear for 
herself until this Sunday afternoon. 
The people sent their spokesman with a 
flag nf truce to parley with the colonel 
commanding the forces before the Tuil- 
eries. He finally consented to withdraw, 
only reserving to himself the right to 
fire upon the crowd if any violence were 
done. But nobody paid any attention 
to the conditions which he wished to 
impose. He was pushed aside, and the 
throngs ran through the gravelled alleys 



EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 



235 



of the. garden, past the statues, up 
the steps, and to the innermost rooms 
of the palace. Guards wearing the tri- 
color were posted at each side of the 
main entrance, and as the tumultuous 
masses pushed their way in, they begged 
them to be calm and do no mischief ; and 
members of the sanitary corps stood on 
the steps collecting money for the 
wounded. The flag that ordinarily 
denoted the presence of the Imperial 
family at the palace was taken down, 
and on the pedestals of all statues, and 
over the gates of the Rue de Rivoli, was 
written up in chalk, " Vice la Repub- 
lique!" "Apartments to let;" " Mr. 
Napoleon has gone to a German water- 
ing-place;" and, finally, "Death to 
robbers and thieves ! " a sentence which 
was intended as a gentle hint to the 
rabble to behave. Hundreds of women 
of all classes crowded into the private 
apartments of the Empress, and curiously 
examined everything that was left. The 
rooms were in great confusion. Boxes 
were scattered about, and servants were 
engaged in packing, paying little atten- 
tion to the angry comments of the people. 
The Emperor's private cabinet was the 
next room visited ; and there the public 
found everything methodically arranged. 
It had been Napoleon's habit for many 
years to work in a room quite shut off 
from any part of the palace, almost im- 
permeable to noise. There, with the 
little Prince, he had spent hours, daily, 
for the last few years when in Paris. 
The book in which the Prince had taken 
a history lesson before his departure 
was open on one of the tables, and his 
exercise had been the commission to 
memory of the fact that, at a certain 
epoch of the First Empire, frivolity, cor- 
ruption, and lust prevailed in high places. 
On the Emperor's desk were maps of 
Prussia and some toy-figures of German 



soldiers, — dangerous toys they had 
proven to the Empire ! 

The Count d'Herisson, an able and 
gallant officer, who was in the first French 
expedition to China, and who was a mem- 
ber of the general staff during the de- 
fense of Paris, has left on record the 
best account, published quite recently, 
of the flight of the Empress from the 
Tuileries. It appears that the Empress 
was decided, by the entreaties of Prince 
de Metternicb and the Chevalier Nigra, 
who often visited her at the Tuileries 
during the last terrible days, to leave 
Paris and the remains of the Imperial 
wreck. About two o'clock of the after- 
noon on the 4th of September, Prince de 
Metternicb and his colleague, and M. 
de Lesseps, who was a pretty constant 
visitor to the palace, succeeded in pre- 
vailing on the Empress to depart. " The 
last two weeks that the poor lady passed 
in the Tuileries," says the Count d'Heris- 
son, "had been a long torture, a veri- 
table mortal agony. Scarcely an hour 
passed without bringing a despatch con- 
firming the news of a disaster. Thus 
her mind and her body, through these 
days consecrated to weeping, despair, 
and labor, and followed by nights with- 
out sleep, and even without repose, had 
both been badly shaken. She kept her- 
self up only by the aid of strong coffee, 
and could get a fitful repose only when 
saturated with chloral. She had, for 
that matter, consumed such an immense 
quantity of that medicine that she had 
fits of somnambulism, during which, with 
her great eyes open and staring, she 
seemed foreign to all that was passing 
round about her, and not even to under- 
stand those who addressed her." 

The Empress made a hasty toilet, 
and took as her only package a little 
travelling sack, which some of the suite 
urged her to leave lest it might betray 



236 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 

her; and it was afterwards found on a Count, "had known the Empress as a 

toilet table when the officers of the young girl, and hail always found the 

Republic invaded the Tuileries. The doors of the Tuileries wide open to him. 

little party set. out, with many misgivings, lb' now placed himself at her disposal 

from tin- Tuileries, through the great, with entire devotion." The Empress, 

empty halls, and across the Louvre, being determined not to enter a railway 

and went down into the street opposite carriage, fearing that she might be recog- 

the old church of St. Germain l'Auxer- nized and arrested, spent the night at the 

rois, from the belfry of which the signal doctor's house, and the next day. in 

for the massacre of St. Bartholomew was company with Madame Lebreton, Dr. 

sounded. The Prince de Metternich gave Evans, and Dr. Crane, she set forth in 

his arm to the Empress, and Chevalier a landau for the coast at Deauville, from 

Nigra accompanied Madame Lebreton, which point she hoped to get to Eng- 

the Empress's reader, who was greatly land." 

devoted to her. The lady stepped hastily At the Porte Maillot Dr. Evans leaned 

into a eah which had been hailed, and half-way out of the window, under pre- 

l'rinee de Metternich said to the coach- text of asking some information of the 

man. •• Boulevard Haussmann." A National Guards, who were stationed 

gamin who was going by stopped, and there, and thus screened from view the 

drawled out, with the peculiar accenl of Empress, who, when she found that she 

the low -class Parisian, " That is a good was outside the walls of Paris without 

one ; sure enough that is the Empress ! " having been recognized, wept; hut 

Luckily noone paid any attention to the whether from joy or grief the Count does 

hoy's remark. The Prince and the not say. The party went, comfortably 

Chevalier (hen got into the cab, which forward to Mantes, where the horses, 

drove briskly away ; and on the Louie- completely fagged, refused to budge 

vard I laussmann they thought it prudent another step, and the fugitives were 

to dismiss the coachman, and presently obliged to get into a clumsy country 

to take another carriage, in which they wagon, drawn by two ill-tempered beasts. 

went to the hospitable mansion of Dr. Some future Carlyle may make out of 

Evans, in the Avenue Malakoff. this journey of the Empress a chapter 

The C.amt d'llerisson says, "Dr. as picturesque as that which describes 

Evans was not only a specialist, who had the attempted flight of the king in the 

been able to acquire a European reputa- last century, and he can use the follow- 

tion as well as an enormous fortune, but ing incident, told with much effect by 

he was a good -hearted man. A few the Count d'llerisson: — 

weeks later, when the sufferings and In a little village called La Comman- 

the privations of the siege began, he derie the new relay came to grief, and 

established and maintained, out of his the horses stood stubbornly under a 

own purse, an American ambulance, shower of blows from the driver's whip. 

When the accounts were So Dr. Evans set out in quesl of other 

made up, after he had distributed succor cattle, and presently discovered in a 

to the prisoners of war in Germany, it shed a caliche, which might have been 

was found that the generous American new at the time of the invasion of the 

citizen had given 1,200.000 francs to his Allies. A peasant offered to go into the 

French home." " Dr. Evans," says the fields and catch some wild-looking horses. 



EURO RE IN STORM AND CALM. 



237 



His offer was accepted, and presently 
two old, broken-down steeds were at- 
tached 1" the aged wagon. The woman 
who furnished this equipage found it so 
good that she said to the doctor, " You 
see that a queen might lie satisfied witli 
such a flue outfit." The Empress trem- 
bled, ami believed that she had been 



interrupted save by break-downs, the 
party arrived at Deauville. The Count 
d'llerisson, with a charming attention 
to small details, informs us that during 
the journey the Empress had wept so 
much that she had no pocket-handker- 
chiefs left ; whereupon the doctor pro- 
ceeded to wash out the handkerchiefs, 







THE FLIGHT OF THE EMPRESS. 



recognized ; but this curious remark, 
which fell from the lips of the good old 
woman, was due entirely to hazard. 

At Evreux the crazy vehicle lum- 
bered through the great square at the 
moment when the new Prefect was pro- 
claiming the Republic in the presence of 
the whole population. No one even turned 
to look at the Empress and her faithful 
escort. At six o'clock in the evening, 
after thirty-six hours on a journey inl- 



and to get them rough-dried by the air. 
"The Empress," said the Count, "re- 
fused at first, then accepted ; and the 
doctor, getting down by a little brook 
which ran beside the highway, washed 
out the linen, then set the handkerchiefs 
to dry in the air at the window of the 
carriage." 

There were two yachts lying in the 
port of Deauville ; one of them was 
called the Gazelle, and belonged to Sir 



238 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



John Burgoyne, who was a personal 
friend of Napoleon III. Dr. Evans 
went to him, and asked him if he would 
save the Empress. 

The doctor pleaded his cause so well 
that finally, towards eleven o'clock in 
the evening, Sir John Burgoyne, or, as 
the Count will have him. Sir Burgoyne, 
accepted the perilous mission, and on 
Wednesday, the 7th of September, at 
six in the morning, the Empress saw the 
soil of France receding from her view. 
Slir had, with her little party, embarked 
the night before, realizing that every 
moment she remained in France added 
to her danger. The Gazelle was only 
about forty-five feet long, and had a 
small cabin, in which the Empress. 
Madame Lebreton, Dr. Evans, and 
" Sir Burgoyne " passed twenty-three 
hours in one of the most frightful tem- 
pests that ever raged on the Channel. 
Great waves swept over the yacht every 
minute. All the members of the party 
•lid their best to comfort and console 
the Empress, and presently the yacht 
came into the port of liyde, where 
the passengers, deluged by salt-water 
and pale with their long exposure, looked 
so forbidding that they were refused 
rooms at the Pier Hotel, and they finally 
took refuge in the York Hotel, whence 
Dr. Evans accompanied the Empress to 
London. It was he who rented for 
her at Chiselhurst the mansion of Cain- 
den Place, where Napoleon III. was 
destined to breathe liis last, and from 
which the young Prince Imperial was 
sorrowfully escorted to his grave by his 
school-mates from the military institution 
at Woolwich. 

Count d'llerisson has the slightest 
details with regard to the historic oc- 
casion carefully set down. We need 
not, perhaps, question the taste of Count 
d'Herisson in stating that the Empress 



entirely forgot to thank Sir John Bur- 
goyne for the use of his yacht, and that 
it was more than a year afterwards, 
when Lady Burgoyne expressed her 
astonishment about the matter in a con- 
versation with t lie Empress, that the 
omission was repaired. In leaving the 
Tuileries the Empress had taken abso- 
lutely nothing but the clothes which 
she had on. Count d'llerisson himself 
was charged with the duty of bringing 
to the Empress such of her personal 
belongings as he could obtain. He was 
authorized by the new authorities to go 
into the Empress's private apartments 
in the Tuileries, and thus describes 
them : — 

"•The great salon, which served as a 
kind of study for the Empress regent, 
her boudoir, her oratory, her bed- 
chamber, her toilet-room were all in a 
long suite, overlooking, and getting 
their light from, the garden of the Tuil- 
eries. All these rooms were furnished 
with the refinement of modern luxury; 
and this luxury hardly seemed in its 
place. It was out of character with the 
rather severe grandeur of the Tuileries. 
It was a parlor of Madame de Metter- 
nich transported to the old palace. I 
feel certain that if the famous ambassa- 
dress had lived in these Tuileries her 
parlor would have been of an entirely 
different style. I have never seen the 
private apartments of the Queen of Eng- 
land, nor those of the Empress of Russia, 
but I would wager that they are strangely 
different from those that the Empress 
Eugenie had arranged for herself at the 
Tuileries." 

Among the despatches lying in dis- 
order on the Empress's table was one 
which M. d'llerisson read, and which 
lias an historical interest. It was ad- 
dressed to Napoleon III., and was thus 
conceived : — 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



239 



"To the Emperor: Do not dream 
of coming back here if you do not 
wish to let loose a frightful revolution. 
This is the advice of Rouher and Chev- 
reau, whom I saw this morning. People 
would be sure to say here that you are 
living from danger. Do not forget how 
Prince Napoleon's departure from the 
Crimea has shadowed his whole life. 

" Eugenie." 

The Count also indulges his public in 
a sketch of the dressing-rooms of the 
Empress ; the manuikins upon which her 
costumes were exhibited before she con- 
descended to place them upon her Im- 
perial person, and many other items which 
we need not here recite. Some idea of 
the luxury of the Empress's wardrobe 
may be gathered from the fact that M. 
d'Herisson took away from the crown 
fur-keeper GOO. 000 francs' worth of 
costly furs, and that the Empress had 
as many more deposited with her per- 
sonal friends. lie estimates the total 
value of the Empress's furs at 3,000,000 
or 4,000,000 of francs. 

When the Republican deputies set 
forth from the Palais Bourbon for the 
HOtel de Ville a vast shout went up 
from the enormous masses of people on 
the Place de la Concorde. Jules Eavre 
was stopped at every moment by people 
who insisted upon shaking hands with 
him, or affectionately embracing him. 
M. Simon was quite worn out with en- 
deavors to rescue his colleague from the 
too demonstrative populace. At last it 
was necessary to surround Eavre, who 
was, for the moment, more conspicuous 
than Gambetta, with a few National 
Guards, and so, by-and-by, became with 
his friends to the historic Hotel de Ville. 

Paris had, in no less than half an 
hour, completely regained its equanimity. 
The news of the Republic's declaration 



had spread like lightning from quarter 
to quarter, and everybody seemed, in the 
general joy, to have forgotten the Prus- 
sians, and the siege which was tightening 
its iron bands round the town. Jules 
Simon says that he heard one workman 
say to another: "They won't dare to 
come, now that we have got it." " They " 
were the Prussians; "it" was the Re- 
public. The deputies did not stop at 
theTuileries, — although they were dying 
to know what was going on within the 
walls, — but pushed on, here and there, 
seeing workmen mounted on ladders 
knocking off the N's and Imperial eagles 
from signs, and demolishing everything 
which tended to recall the memory of 
the recently ruined government. 

At the IIAtel de Ville there was new 
danger; and all the politicians knew it. 
There the Communists rallied, as they 
rallied later to such deadly advantage. 
There was Milliere with his men; De- 
lescluze arrived shortly afterwards. 
Milliere had been busily at work draw- 
ing up lists of members for the projected 
new government, and these lists were 
already being circulated in the Place de 
Grevc when the deputies arrived. The 
names of Blanqui, Deleseluze, Floureus, 
Felix Pyat, and Rochefort had been 
placed upon these lists. There was a 
plan to proclaim Rochefort Mayor of 
Paris, and a strongly armed delegation 
had been sent off to Sainte Pelagic to take 
him out of the captivity from which he 
was freed by the disappearance of die 
Empire. Had any guardian ventured to 
resist this delegation he would undoubt- 
edly have been shot. One of the leading 
members of the Republican group affirms 
that, unless some one had had the good 
sense to cry out when the procession was 
Hearing the Hotel de Ville, " Make tin? 
Deputies of Paris members of the go\ em- 
inent ! " the Commune would have hroken 



240 



KUlinVK IS STORM A.Y/> CALM. 



out in all its hideousness on that very day, 
and the Prussians would have been in 
Paris eight days afterwards. 

Rochefort arrived from his prison in a 
carriage ornamented with red flags, and 
followed by a crowd which veiled, 
•• Rochefort for Mayor of Paris!" This 
question of the mayoralty was a burning 
one, and, as we see by this incident, was 
brought forward the moment it was 
possible. Paris had ardently desired 
the autonomy of the capital for many 
years, and, had the inhabitants been a.c- 
eorded that autonomy, would never have 
made the Revolution of 1871. But the 
time had not come for Rochefort to be 
Mayor of Paris, so he had to content 
himself with a post which was offered 
him in the new government, henceforth 
to be known through the days of dilli- 
culty and despair in the siege as the 
government of National Defense. Un- 
doubtedly Paris owes much to these men 
who acted with so much gravity, vigor, 
and tact at a time when delay or hesi- 
tation might have caused infinite blood- 
shed 

On the way to the Hotel de Ville 
the deputies had met General Trochu 
galloping along, followed by his general 
staff, and Jules Favre had made a sign 



to him to halt, taken him by the hand, 
and informed him of all the events of 
the day. " 1 am going with my friends," 
he said, "to constitute a government at 
the Hotel de Ville, so we will beg you 
to return to your quarters, and there 
wait our communications." General 
Trochu said he had no objections to 
doing this ; and in fact he did it. Before 
nightfall Paris had its new government, 
with Gamhetta as the delegate for the 
Interior, Jules Simon for Public Instruc- 
tion, Jules Favre for Foreign Affairs, 
General Leflo as Minister of War, and 
Genera] Trochu, Eugene Pelletan, Em- 
manuel Arago, and Rochefort as dele- 
gates without special missions. The 
new government's proclamation, issued 
in haste, told the people that the Republic 
had saved them from the invasion of 
1792, that the Republic was proclaimed 
anew, and that the Revolution had been 
made in the interests of public safety. 

A dav or two afterwards the exiles, 
who had for twenty-one years watched 
the course of the Empire from their 
retreats in the mountains and islands, 
were on their way home. Victor Hugo 
did not lose an instant in making prepa- 
rations for his departure after lie had 
heard the news of his enemy's downfall. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



241 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. 

Sedan, — The March (o the Ardennes. — The Headstrong Palikao. — The Crown Prince of Saxony's 
Army. — General De Failly at Beaumont. — The Retreat to Sedan. — General De Wimpffen comes 
upon the Scene. — The Prussians Open Fire in Front of Sedan. — Disaster in MacMahon. Slaugh- 
tered by Invisible Enemies. — The Battle atBazeilles. — De Wimpffen's Forlorn Mope. 



WHAT had taken place at Sedan? 
We pass over the painful and 
unwise march of Marshal MacMahon, 
with his poorly equipped and badly fed 
troops, from Rheims to the point at 
which he was met by the advance corps 
of the Crown Prince's army. Some idea 
of the confusion and disorder of his 
march may be gathered from the state- 
ment, made upon good authority, that 
the army, which left Chalons one hun- 
dred and forty thousand strong, could 
not put seventy thousand men in line 
on the great day of the decisive battle 
ai Sedan. It is now clearly established 
by General De Wimpffen, and by other 
gallant officers, that, if they had been 
allowed to have their way, they would 
never have let the sun set on the battle- 
field of Sedan without a final and a 
brilliant struggle for victory. The gov- 
ernment in Paris, acting upon the insuffi- 
cient information which it had, insisted 
with the greatest energy, while MacMahon 
was hesitating at Rheims, that he should 
march to a junction with Bazaine. Gen- 
eral De Palikao, whose conduct can 
be qualified only as headstrong, wenl 
to see the Empress, and threatened 
that, unless MacMahon started at once 
for Metz, he would have it posted 
up all over France that the Emperor 
was the cause of the disasters which 
must result from the delay in bringing 
the two great French armies together. 
MacMahon, like a gallant gentleman, 



took the blame for this fatal march, at 
the time that he was criticised with the 
greatest vivacity and harshness, upon 
himself; but history will place I lie re- 
sponsibility of the disaster of Sedan on 
the shoulders of the Fmperor and the 
Regency in l'aris. General Lebrun and 
others have given what they thought, 
are sufficient proofs to indicate that, in 
spite of all the follies committed by the 
Imperial army, the Germans were taken 
very much by surprise, and thai the 
concentration of their troops around 
Metz was not. due at all to the marvel- 
lous perspicacity of Von Mollkc, or to 
the German military genius, but rather 
to a happy accident, which, in addition 
to tin: disorganization of the French, 
gave them a comparatively easy victory. 
On the 27th of August, at half-past 
eight in the evening, Marshal Mac- 
Mahon addressed to the Ministers of 
War the following telegram: "The lit si 
and second armies — more than two hun- 
dred thousand strong— -are blockading 
Metz chiefly on the left shore. A force 
estimated at fifty thousand men is said 
to be established on the right, hank of 
the Meuse to hinder my march on 
Met/.. We hear that the army of the 
Crown Prince is to-day on the move 
towards the Ardennes, with fifty thou- 
sand men. It is said to be already at 
Ardeuil. I am at Chcnes, with a little 
more than one hundred thousand men. 
since the 9th I have had no news from 



I'll' EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 

Bazaine. If I go forward to join forces in their ranks, and were obligee] to retreat 

with him I shall be attacked in front by before a deadly fire, which came from 

a part of the first and second armies, forests along the route. The Fifth 

which can lodge in the woods a force French corps, under General De Failly, 

superior lo my own. at the same time was thus pushed back to Chatillou, where 

that I am attacked by the Crown it camped in the greatest confusion I'm 

Prince's army, who can cut off my line the night. 

of retreat. To-morrow I move up to Poor General De Failly committed 

Metz, whence 1 shall continue my re- faults enough in the war lo lie pardoned 

treat, according I" events, towards the the unfortunate remark attributed to him 

west." by many historians of the campaign, and 

Hack came a telegram from the .Minis- never, .so far as I know, contradicted by 

ter of War, saying: " If you abandon him, — a remark made when he was in 

Bazaine we shall have a revolution in full retreat. lie was breakfasting at 

Paris, and yon will yourself be attacked Beaumont, where a fresh disaster was 

by all the forces of the enemy. Paris destined to fall upon the French, when 

will take care of itself against the Ger- he was informed that the Prussians were 

mans; and it appears lo me urgent approaching. "Oh, well," said the 

that you should join Bazaim- as rapidly General," we punished them severely 

as possible. Shall follow you with the enough yesterday: it is only fair that 

greatest anxiety." When Marshal Mac- they should put a few of our men hors 

Mahon receiver! this despatch, he re- de com bat to-day ; so let us opeu another 

nounccd liis movement on Met/ and bottle." 

inarched towards Moutmedy, having In the leafy avenues of the Ardennes 
losl a precious twenty-four hours, dur- the Germans found facile shelter, and 
in". - which time the German army was made sad havoc among the French on 
undertaking one of its terrible forced this day of the L'Tih. The next day the 
marches, like that which decided the French resumed their march in a pour- 
battle of Sadowa ; and MacMahon, who iug rain, and there were no hostile opera- 
fancied that in tin' neighborhood of tions. Bui on the 29th two squadrons 
Montmedy he was going to operate his of Prussian hussars, coming up to a little 
famous junction with Bazaine's forces, village, took it, by storm. Further on, 
found himself face to face with a division at Nouart, the French were unlucky in a 
of the Germans, which formed, as it collision with the Germans. Near this 
were, a fourth German army, and had point the French opened a formidable 
been organized in great haste, in view artillery lire upon the German troops, 
of the change in the Fiench plan of who were peaceably defiling through a 
tions, and placed under the orders valley about a league away; hut no 
of the Prince of Saxony. This army French Geueral had had the forethought 
was composed of the Prussian Guards, to block the route over which the Ger- 
magnilicent troops, the Saxon-,, and man- were passing, by placing an army 
one of the Alveuslcben corps, and two corps across it. On the evening of the 
divisions of cavalry. 29th o\' August General De Failly's 

At Buzancy the French cavalry and corps, which had been the avant-garde 

the chasseurs of General Brahaut sud- of the French army, was now the rear- 

denlv found the German shells falling guard. General Felix Douay, with the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



243 



Seventh corps, was in the rear, on the 
right, near Buzancy. The Firsl corps, 
commanded by General Dncrot, formed 
the centre, and was at Raucoui't, and the 
Twelfth corps, under General Lebruu, 
was in camp on the left. "To accom- 
plish this movement of concentration," 
says a clever critic of the Empire, " which 
culminated at Sedan, the French army 
had made eight leagues in three days ! " 

Unless the French army could rapidly 
gain Montmedy, or retrace its steps to 
Mezieres, it was placed in a position of 
great danger. Through this wild, woody 
country, full of ravines, the river 
Mouse takes its sinuous way. Mont- 
medy is the principal stronghold of the 
department of the Mouse. Not far 
away are Mouzon, on the same river, 
and Carillon on the Chieres. Beyond 
them, ami just back of the confluence of 
the Mouse and the Chieres, is situated 
the old town of Sedan, at the bottom of 
a kind of sleepy hollow, surrounded on 
all sides by green and wooded hills. .V 
little farther away is Mezieres, the only 
really important stronghold of the sec- 
tion. " Here," says M. Jules Claretie, 
"in this kind of triangle, formed 
by the two rivers, the Mouse and the 
Chieres, the destinies of the country 
were to be jeopardized." 

On the evening of the 29th General 
De Failly passed through the foresl of 
Dieulet and camped at Beaumont. It is 
perhaps too much to say that he camped, 
for all night long his troops were strag- 
gling in in little parties, without the 
smallest attention to discipline. The 
rear-guard of the Fifth corps did not 
get into camp until five o'clock in the 
morning. At seven o'clock Marshal 
MacMahon came up to the camp, stopped 
at the head-quarters, and ordered General 
De Failly to march upon Mouzon. Here 
there was a delay, which seems to have 



characterized all De Failly 's movements, 
and nothing was done until nine o'clock", 
and then, after a short inarch, there "as 
a halt until noon, by which time all was 
lost. Poor .Marshal MacMahon had 
gone oft confident that his orders would 
be obeyed and licit De Failly would keep 
ahead of the enemy, for this seems the 
utmost that the unfortunate French 
hoped. At a little after (lie hour of 
noon. Genera] De Failly found his imps 
surrounded by the army of the Crown 
Prince of Prussia. 

The first Prussian shell, it is said, 
caused a veritable stupor in the French 
camp. Neither generals nor soldiers 
had the least notion that the enemy was 
so closely upon them. There was a call 
to arms; many of the soldiers were in 
their shirt-sleeves, some of them were 
lying down asleep. There was a whirl 
of batteries along the hill above the 
French, then a rain of shell, which did 
terrible execution. Presently, three 
French regiments of the line and the 
Fourth battalion of the Chasseurs a 
Pied got a position on the hills, and were 
pushing hack into the woods the Prus- 
sians who were jusi appearing, when :i 
new storm of shells came out of the 
thickets, and the valiant liners looked in 
vain for their own artillery to second 
their efforts. The Germans, seeing that 
the corps was completely at their mercy, 
broke cover, and with loud shouts 
advanced on the enemy. The French, 
in desperation, then attempted a bayonet 
charge ; hut they were met with such 
a frightful fusillade that tln\ vere 
obliged to retreat. On the left Hie 
French were thrown hack on Mouzon ; 
their centre was broken, and carried by 
the Bavarians: and their retreat upon 
Sedan was a veritable same qui jh-h/. 

All night long the discouraged and 
demoralized troops wore pouring into the 



244 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 

gates <>f Sedan, and next day the roads graphed from Carignan to the Empress 

about the town were covered with re- that there had been an engagement of no 

treating men, worn out with hunger and great importance, and that he had been 

fatigue. Towards nightfall of the 29th on horseback for some time, 
one of the French cavalry regiments, the On the morning of the 30th of Augusl , 

Fifth cuirassiers, had attempted a brill- General Do Wimpffen came upon the 

iant charge on the enemy, but was scene. lie was coming in all haste 

badly cut to pieces by the artillery. to take the place of General l)e Failly. 

The Thirtieth regiment of the line, who had proved himself so notoriously 

when it retreated across the Meuse, after incompetent, and his energies were 

sunset, on this disastrous day, hail not a doubly awakened because he was a 

single round of cartridges left. native of the province in which this 

Meantime General Douay's Seventh great and decisive struggle was going on. 
corps hail arrived on the battle-field, and When he arrived at Metz, on the morn- 
General LeBrun, with his infantry, had iug of the 30th, he was bonified at the 
made :i splendid defence of the passage appearance of the army corps confided 
of the Mouse; hnt the day was veritably to his charge. Perhaps, if he had been 
lest, and (he whole army had finally in command at Buzaucy, Sedan might 
received orders to retreat upon Sedan not have occurred. "I rushed down," 
along the left shore of the river ('lucres, says General De Wimpffen, in his own 

Here the army was close to the published account of the operations 
Belgian frontier, and entire regiments, around Sedan, " on to the plain to reason 
wandering recklessly hither and yon, with the flying men. I could hardly 
crossing the frontier without knowing it, make them understand me. It was in 
found themselves in presence of the vain 1 cried to them, ' Look behind you, 
neutral Belgian line of troops, and. with if you do not believe me! The enemy's 
despair and rage in their hearts, were cannon is still a long way off : you have 
compelled U> throw down their guns, nothing to fear.' They would not listen 
and also to recognize that they had to me in their panting retreat, [finally 
thrown away their last chance for the succeeded in stopping a few and par- 
defense of the country in that campaign, tially reassuring them. Little by little 

Wiel.' the confusion and agony of this tins example was followed.'' It must be 
retreat was at its height, the Imperial admitted that no General ever took corn- 
train of carriages made its appearance maud of an army corps under more try- 
on the high-road to Sedan, and the lack- iug conditions, '-.hist at the moment 

eys compelled all (he wagons which were when 1 was busies! in getting things into 

filled with wounded and dying men to he shape tin- equipage of the household of 

ranged in regular order at the side of the the Emperor came up along the road near 

road while the Emperor passed by. me. The servants pretended that every- 

Napoleon had spent the day at Beau- body must stand aside to give them pas- 

mont, lying on the grass, surrounded by sage. I gave some of them a, formal 

the officers of the general staff, and lis- order to profit by the freshness of their 

tening with seeming indifference to the horses, and to take a side-road, and clear 

noise of the cannon heard beyond the out as speedily as possible. All the 

woods. lie preserved his usual calm troops were half 'lead with hunger," 

while on the road to Sedan, and tele- saw; the General "No distribution of 



EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 



245 



bread had been made for some time. 
Tlic\ were howling fur food." 

The misfortunes of General De Wim- 
pffen at Sedan have a touch of pathos in 
them. This brave man, who had heard 
his praise ringing throughout Europe at 
the close of the Italian campaign, — the 
man whose grenadiers of the guard had 
swept down upon the Austrian army on 
the day of Magenta, ami who. sword in 
hand, had been in the thickest of the fight, 
was now condemned by the strange 
caprice of fate to command a broken and 
a useless army, and to sign his name to 
the most inglorious capitulation of 
modern times. That he was able to 
bear himself with the greatest dignity 
under these trying circumstances reflects 
the highest honor upon his character; 
and his countrymen are now unanimous 
in the belief that, had he arrived in time, 
he could have changed the current of 
events; nay. they even believe that, had 
it not been for the inexplicable feeble- 
ness of Napoleon, towards the close of 
the decisive day, De Wimpffen would 
'have given Marshal Von Moltke a genu- 
ine surprise. 

Hut it was not to be. General De 
Wimpffen arrived at Sedan, with what 
was left of poorDe Failly's corps, on the 
night of the 30th. The next morning lie 
looked over the camp, and, alter a rather 

' 1 reception from Marshal MacMahon, 

he went to pay his respects to the Em- 
peror. On seeing General DeWimpffen, 
Napoleon's icy surface of calm melted : 
the tears came into his eyes ; he clasped 
the General by the hands, and said. " Do 
explain to me. if you can, why we are 
always beaten, and what can have 
brought about the disastrous affair at 
Beaumont." Then he added, -'Alas! 
we are very unlucky." 

General DeWimpffen did not undertake 
lo explain, but contented himself with 



a few commonplaces, and hastened lo 
patch up matters as best lie could. lie 
found in Sedan neither provisions nor 
ammunition in any quantity of conse- 
quence. The French army had lost, 
twenty cannon, eleven mitrailleuses, and 
seven hundred prisoners at Beaumont ; 
and the Prussians and the Saxons were 
still pushing back the French soldiers 
carer and nearer to Sedan, down into 
the deadly hollow between the hills, 

which were so soon to be crowned by the 
fatal circle of artillery. Towards Mez- 
ieres, the Crown Prince's army had cut 
off retreat in the direct ion of that fortress, 
and the Bavarians were massed before 
Bazeilles. The crowning satire upon the 
maladministration of the Empire was the 
crossing of the Germans over the Meuse 
on bridges already mined, which the 
French engineer corps had not taken the 
precautious to blow up. 

< Jeneral De Wimpffen issued a vigorous 
proclamation to the inhabitants of the 
department of the Aisue, in which he 
said. '-One of your children who has 
just arrived from Algeria, gives himself 
the satisfaction of visiting his family 
before he faces the enemy. He b gs 

you to show yourselves the worthy 
children of those who in 1814 and 1815 
joined themselves with our soldiers to 
fight against invasion." 

.Marshal MacMahon. it is said, had 
never had the least idea of giving battle 
in such a ruinous position as that in which 
he was now placed. lie spent a, great 
part of the day of the ."1st of August in 
examining the roads leading into Sedan, 
to determine by which one he would effect 
his retreat. There were three roads : 
one ti) the west, towards Metz, which 
was, as we have already seen, rendered 
useless ; another to tin' east, to Carignan ; 
a third to the north into Belgium. Mac- 
Mahon sent a strong party to cut the 



246 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

bridge over the Mouse at Donchdry, Wimpffen had in his pocket the commis- 

and that night lefl things to be decided sion of the Minister of War, giving him 

by the position in which he should find the general command of the array in case 

the enemy at dawn. General Lebruu that MacMahon were killed or wounded, 

asserts, however, in a recently published "S\" I x -n General De Wimpffen learned of 

work, that MacMahon had, on the even- General Ducrot's appointment he was 

ing of the 31st of August, given up all at first inclined to keep his own commis- 

hopc of taking the defensive, and that sion in his pocket; but as soon as he 

the disposition of the four army corps saw that General Ducrot was operating 

around Sedan indicates that he was pre- a retreat <>n the centre and on the left, 

paring for advance. so as to throw the whole army bark to 

Marshal MacMahon did not have to Mezieres, lie thought ii was his .Inly to 

wait for the morning's sun to decide take charge, and, bringing his troops 

what he would do. for tin- Prussians back under the cannon of Sedan, he 

opened a tremendous lire at half-past announced himself as ( ieucral-in-chief, 

four on the morning of the 1st. The showed his commission, and at once sent 

Marshal jumped upon his horse, and orders to General Ducrot to take up his 

went out to get an exact idea of the old position, sending to General Lebrun, 

enemy's position. While watching a, who was lighting at Bazeilles, all the 

lively fusillade, in front of Bazeilles, a troops which he could dispose of, to 

splinter from a .shell struck and killed confirm the success that the valiant Lc- 

his horse, ami the Marshal fell heavily brun was getting on the right. 

under him. At first lie thought he was •• It would have been," says M. Jules 

only bruised, but when he was taken out Simon, "possible at the beginning of 

from under the animal's body lie the day to operate a retreat at Bouillon, 

swooned, ami found that he was so to reach Belgium, and thus to save part 

badly hurt that he must transmit his of t he army ; but then the troops would 

powers. He sent at once for General have constituted themselves prisoners 

Ducrot, thinking that this General was without having fought. Neither Marshal 

better qualified to judge of the German MacMahon nor General Ducrot nor 

movement because he had had so wide General De Wimpffen thought of this for 

an experience of their tactics. Ducrot ft single instant'. 'With few illusions as 

hastened to the Twelfth corps, which was to the result of a battle, if they were 

already very badly cut up, and pointed forced to accept it. they would hear of 

out directly to Genera] Lebrun that the retreat only in passing over the enemy, 

enemy was moving slowly up the heights, which was hemming them in. The Ger- 

which would give them the advantage man report states this to their honor, 

over the left of the First French corps, and fiance will remember them grate- 

" The enemy is proceeding," he said, fully for it." 

••according to its usual tactics. It is It was now nine o'clock in the morning. 

going to surround us on all sides. We General De Wimpffen, ranging over the 

must not hesitate. The army must beat field of battle, met the Emperor, who 

a retreat post-haste for Mezi&res." had conic back from the hills near 

Meantime there were two French com- Bazeilles. Napoleon had been for a 

manders on the field. MacMahon had short time under the enemy's fire, and one 

appointed Ducrot. but General De of his orderlies had been killed near him. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 247 

When lie met General De Wimpffen lie The Emperor had definitely given up 

was going quietly to take his breakfast, all participation in the command of the 

General De Wimpffen tells ns in his French army some fifteen days before 

pamphlet on the battle that he himself the battle of Sedan, and neither he nor 

had had nothing to eat that morning but General Ducrol took any part in the 

a carrot, that he had pulled in the field, command after De Wimpffen had shown 

and that thousands of soldiers had had his commission. After Napoleon met 

nothing to eat for twelve hours. The De Wimpffen on the field he went to his 

Emperor asked for news of the battle, quarters in Sedan, and was seen no 

General De Wimpffen answered that more until the battle was over, at six 

things were going well, and that they o'clock in the evening, 
were gaining ground. Napoleon thought General De Wimpffen was determined, 

it proper to point out that the enemy at all hazards, to avoid a capitulation, 

was massing very considerable forces on His personal pride, his sense of the 

the left; but De Wimpffen said, "We country's dignity, and his fresh ardor, 

are going to busy ourselves with throwing which had not yel been blunted by the 

the Bavarians into the Meuse ; then, spectacle of the long series of disasters 

with all our troops, we will face our new and the horrible exposures of negligence 

enemy." These words, spoken in haste, since the defeats in Alsatia, — all for- 

were afterwards brought up against De bade him to think of surrender. lie 

Wimpffen by the Imperial Party as pre- plainly saw that he was fatally, hope- 

sumable evidence of his incapacity. But lessly outnumbered; but, he set his 

the( iermanmilitary report does fulljustiee heroic soul upon the task of breaking 

to De Wimpffen's tactics, and condemns the line of iron and steel after he had 

those of General Ducrot. General De inflicted all the punishment he could 

Wimpffen's plan was to try first to win upon his enemies, and getting away out 

a defensive battle, then to undertake a of this horrible valley, where he could 

surprise by a sudden and general on- undertake new movements in more ad- 

slaught on the Bavarian corps, forcing vantageous positions. It was almost 

them to open the road to Carignan, which impossible to move about upon this field 

the movements then in operation were of battle, which was swept from earliest 

leaving quite undefended by theGerman dawn by four hundred German cannon, 

troops. He meant to hold out until night- The German batteries, while the l'rus- 

fall not. only for the honor of the French sian corps were manoeuvring \\ ith a view 

arms, but because he thought it would be to closing up the road to Belgium, sent 

easier than to fray a passage for himself down upon the French troops continuous 

and his army as far as Carignan and Mont- and converging fires. "Wounded," 

medv. As for General Ducrot's tactics says one French writer, "by invisible 

the Prussian generals have repeatedly said enemies firing from unknown distances. 

that his movement, which had been begun the demoralized troops fell into a kind 

at half-past seven o'clock, had led them of dumb rage. Our artillery, inferior in 

to hope that they would have the whole range to the German guns, replied as 

French army safely caged by nine. They best it could ; but. while our shells could 

admit that they were very much surprised not always reach the enemy, — and a good 

at the sudden offensive movements, and many of them went off prematurely, — 

especially at the prolonged resistance. the number of the enemy's guns was 



248 EUROrii I.\ STORM AND CALM. 

triple ours ; — we were simply crushed ! of il by two officers whom be managed to 

General Felix Douay's troops were ter- hail on the field, saying to his Imperial 

rible sufferers from this lire. The cav- master thai he had decided to force the 

aliy could not even get into line ; and to line in front of ( reueral Lebrun and ( ten- 

niaintain the infantry in line of battle eral Ducrot sooner than be taken prisoner 

was next to impossible." The German at Sedan. " Let Your Majesty come and 

artillery 'lis mted three French bat- put himself al the head of Ids troops; 

tcries in less than tell minutes. Here they will engage upon their honor to 

the mitrailleuse, on which the French had open a passage lor him." This letter 

counted so much, was quite useless, be- was written at. a quarter-past one; but 

cause of Its short range. jus! then General Douay was falling 

All the military wiiters on the French back before the Prussian artillery, and 

side, describing the battles, say that the the French troops, who hail supported 

German circle formed around the French with real heroism the terrible fire from 

seemed to grow smaller and smaller the steel cannons of the Germans for 

every lew minutes; and this weird and more than two hours, were wavering, 

terrible movement of closing in bad the The Prussian rnfantry was rushing down 

most demoralizing effect upon the French to sweep awav the French left, when 

troops. General De Wimpffen had not General Ducrot & i:t 'lieralDe Margue- 

a single aide-de-camp at his disposition, ritte with his cavalry division to charge 

From a hill on which he had established the Germans. This General executed a 

himself, he looked down upon General brilliant movement, and dispersed the 

Ducrot driven out of Givonne, and Gen- first inimical lines, but found himself 

eral Douay half crushed bv the German rushing on troops formed in squares, and 

artillery-men, and the Fifth corps artil- firing at one hundred and fifty paces 

lery lighting here and there. At Ba- deadly volleys into the galloping squad- 

zeilles, the marines posted in the houses rons. The French cuirassiers turned 

were giving the Bavarians a terrible and returned to the charge, with the 

punishment, and General Von der Tanii splendid energy shown bv their unfortu- 

bad to be reinforced with troops nate comrades at Froshweilcr. 

from the Prince of Saxony's army, The Crown Prince of Prussia after- 

from the Prussian Brandenburg regi- wards told General Ducrot that the old 

incut, ami from the Fourth battalion of (banian king, when he saw this white 

Prussian chasseurs, as well as by a new line of French cuirassiers come, breaking 

battery, before he could sustain combat, like foam upon a rocky shore, against 

It was just at this point that De the black squares of German Infantry, 

Wimpffen hoped to break through the from time to time, could not restrain 

enemy's lines : so he gave orders to Gen- his admiration, and cried out- '-Oh: 

eral Lebrun to undertake the operation, the brave fellows." General De Mar- 

At the same lime he ordered General gueritte was mortally wounded in this 

Ducrot to cover the movement, General magnificent charge; but his place was 

Douay to march to La Moncelle, near taken by M. De Gall iff et, so soon to he 

Bazeilles, and one of the divisions of rendered celebrated by his energetic ac- 

the Filth corps to throw itself upon the tion during the great Paris insurrection ; 

same point. Then he hastily wrote a and new charges, all superb but all 1111- 

Ictter to Napoleon, scalding two copies availing, were made. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND HALM. 



iH'l 



This final effort of De Galliffet's closed 
the French resistance on this side of the 
battle-field. The army began to retreat, 
still decimated by the fiendish shell-fire. 
General Ducrot got his soldiers to rally 
three times; and each time the shells 
sent, them back. Companies disbanded, 
and began to fall away towards the old 
camp near Sedan. They neither knew 
whether MacMahon was alive or dead, 
whether the Emperor had fled or was 
still at his post, who was in command, 
or anything else ! They finally were 
panic-stricken, and swept into the streets 
of Sedan and hung round tin- base of the 
pedestal, upon which stood the proud 
figure of Turenne, who had taken and 
sacked many a ( ieniian town. 

The battle was lost. Von Moltke, on 

the heights, was jubilant at the success 
of his cool and adroit, calculations; hut 

there was still a. duty left for the ji ■ 

General De Wimpffen to perform. His 
conscience rebelled more than ever at 
the thought of surrender, and he clung to 
his idea of opening a gateway towards 
Carignan. While De Wimpffen wis 
impatiently awaiting the answer to his 
letter, he was horrified and ashamed 
to hear that the white flag of capitula- 
tion was hoisted upon the rampart of 
Sedan. Yet he could not believe that 
the Emperor would not answer him, 
and he waited for an hour at the head 
of live or six thousand troops of all sorts. 
a kind of epitome of the whole army, 
the bravest and the best, the men who 
were too honest and brave to retreat, and 
who were willing to sacrifice their liv< s for 
the maintenance of their honor. With 
this little body he had made one or two 
attempts to continue the resistance. 
When he learned from an officer of the 
Imperial household about the appearance 
of the white flag, it is said that he fell 
into a terrible passion. 



When he read the letter from the Em- 
peror, ordering him to capitulate, lie shut 
his teeth, and said, " ! do not recognize 
the Emperor's right to hoist the flag of 
parky. I refuse to negotiate." lie 
crushed the letter iu his hand, hastened to 
Sedan, and furiously addressed the sol- 
diers who were hanging about the Placode 
Turenne. " What ! "he said. " willyougive 
up yourarins. and be made prisoners? Not 
a bit of it! Follow me and open a pas- 
sage by shoving the enemy aside ! " This 
vigorous manoeuvre seemed at first likely 
to succeed. General De Wimpffen got 
about him several thousand men from all 
the corps. There were found courageous 
inhabitants of the town among those 
who offered to die or win with him ; and 
they set forth upon one of those forlorn 
hopes, about which, in process of time, 
nations weave the garlands of tradition, 
and make of that which was foolish a 
sublime and heroic thing. Hundreds of 
he Wimpffen's little body of men were 
swept away; but others rushed upon the 
Bavarians, succeeded in taking thesquare 
of Bazeilles, and swept the enemy out 
beyond the church, where it, had been in 
strong position, and, vainly hoping lor 
reinforcements, stubbornly maintained 
their place — it wasall that they could do 
— until nightfall. General Lebrun was 
in this glorious little body of men, and 
fought side by side with De Wimpffen. 
But in the evening, the commanding 
general, finding that he could not hold 
out, felt it his duty to return to Sedan. 
He had twice refused to treat with the 
enemy, which Napoleon had wished him 
to do. He went slowly and despair- 
ingly to the little hotel, where he had 
taken a room on the night of his arrival, 
and sitting down at his desk, wrote a 
letter offering his resignation as com- 
mander-in-chief. It was then about half- 
past seven o'clock. 



250 EUROPE /.V STORM AND CALM 

At eight, li" received a letter from King remarked that ho did not under- 

the Emperor, saj'ing : "General, you stand th<' observation of his Imperial 

cannot give your resignation, because we Majesty. ,; It is." he said, " the army 

must try and save the army by an hon- of my son that you have been fighting 

orable capitulation. I cannot, therefore, to-day." 

accept your resignation. You have done "But where, then, is Friederich 

your duty to-day; continue to do it; Karl?" said the Emperor. 

you will render a real service to the " Blockading Metz with seven army 

country. The King of Prussia lias ac- corps," was the answer of the King, 

cepted an armistice, ami I am waiting The storv goes that Kim; William 

his propositions." sent down to Sedan, after the reception 

If General De Wimpffen had known of Napoleon lll.'s letter, a certain 

thai the King of Prussia had not ac- Bavarian lieutenant-colonel, a veritable 

cepted a proposition for an armistice, daudy, tall. thin, wearing gold-bowed 

but instead bail received from Napoleon spectacles. This gentleman, as. in 

III. an oiler of surrender, his energetic company with the French officers who 

character might have led him to some had brought Napoleon's letter, he had 

very radical decision. But Napoleon reached a point just outside the Prus- 

was careful to conceal from him the real sian lines, was not a little startled by 

state of the case. He had sent an aide- the explosion of a shell from the < lerman 

tic-rump, the Count Reille, to carry to batteries, which fell scarcely ten yards 

the King of Prussia a letter, in which he from him. He brushed the dust from 

said that •■ not having been able to die his clothes, and turning to the French 

at the head of his troops, he placed his officers, said. "Gentlemen, 1 beg a 

sword at the feetof His Majesty." That thousand pardons for this lack of courtesy 

he was not able to die at the head of bis on the part of our artillery-men. Our 

troops was due to the care with which he batteries certainly could not have seen 

secluded himself in his hotel dining the the white Hag." This " lack of courtesy " 

whole afternoon. cost two poor soldiers their lives ; and 

Of how much avail he could have the officers saw them carried off on 

been at the head of his troops may be "ladders" made of crossed muskets, 

judged from the fact that he did not This Bavarian officer, Von Bronsart by 

even know u hat German armies he was name, took back to the King of Prussia 

confronted with. When he met the from Sedan Napoleon's formal offer of 

King of Prussia, he begun talking about capitulation, 
the army of friederich Karl. The old 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



251 



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. 



The Quarrel between Dtierot and Do Wimpffen. — The Interview with the Conquerors. — The Question of 
Alsatia Raised. — Divergence of ( Ipinion between Bismarekand Von Moltke. — The French! Council of 
War. Napoleon's I tcparture from Sedan. — Napoleon as a Prisoner. — Bismarck's Interview with him. 
— Over the Battle-field. — Singular Appearance of the Dead. — King William on the Field. — His Meet- 
ing with Napoleon. — The M'* in the Bonaparte Ili^tury. 



WHEN the bravo General Ue 
Wimpffen discovered that he had 
been deceived by the Emperor he went 
at once to the Imperial head-quarters 
and demanded an audience. He was 
told that this was impossible, as His 
Majesty was in conference with the 
Prince Imperial. 

This the General knew to be a lie, as 
the young Prince had been for two days 
at Mezieres. Besides this was not a 
time for equivocation ; so he cried out 
angrily that he must see the Emperor at 
once ; and at last he succeeded in pass- 
ing all the guards. 

As soon as he entered the Imperial 
presence he said, " Sire, if I have lost 
tin' battle, and been conquered, it is 
because my orders have not been ex- 
ecuted, because your generals refused to 
obey me." 

No sooner had he said these words 
than General Ducrot, who was .seated in 
a dark corner of the room, and whom 
General De Wimpffen had not seen when 
lie came in, jumped up and stepped 
directly in front of his commanding 
officer. ••What do you say? We re- 
fused to obey you? To whom do you 
allude? Is it tome? Unfortunately your 
orders have been only too well executed. 
If we are on the brittle of a frightful 
disaster, more frightful than anything 
we have ever dreamed of, it is your fool- 
ish presumption which has brought us 
there." 



General Ducrot was in a terrible pas- 
sion, ami went on to say that if General 
De Wimpffen bad not stopped his move- 
ment of retreat, the French troops would 
now be safely at Mezieres, or, at least, 
out of the clutches of the enemy. Upon 
this, General De Wimpffen said that if 
that was the opinion of his friends, it 
was evident that he should no longer 
retain the position of commander-in- 
chief. 

But here a fresh surprise awaited him. 
General Ducrot was not at all of his 
opinion. " You took command this 
morning, when there was honor ami 
profit to be got by it. I did not stand 
in your way, though I might, perhaps, 
have done so; but, at present, you can- 
not refuse to keep it. You alone must 
shoulder the shame of capitulation." 
•• Monsieur le General Ducrot itait tr&s 
exalte"," says General De Wimpffen. in 
his account of the events at Sedan ; ami 
he was, perhaps, excusable for his ex- 
citement, for, to be appointed to the 
command of a great army on the morn- 
ing of a. battle, and, before one litis time 
to get it into action, to lie relieved of 
that command, is certainly enough to 
try the best of tempers. General De 
Wimpffen saw that he had a cross to 
bear, and that he might as well pick it 
up and go forward bravely with it. He 
was full of contempt for the feebleness 
of the Emperor's character in this criti- 
cal moment, and did not hesitate t i show 



2f>2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

his fpfliiio 1 during the whole afternoon ing the rest of the war so terribly bitter 

and evening. on the part of the French. 

Nevertheless, he went off, as he was Hail peace Keen made at Sedan, and 
ordered to do, to the German head- had the German armies retired without 
quarters, where he found Count Von pursuing their march towards Paris, and 
Bismarck and the venerable Von Moltke. without exacting territorial compensa- 
te hud taken with him General De Cas- tiou, they would perhaps have been 
telnau, one of Napoleon lll.'s aides-de- hailed by large classes of the French 
camp, the mission of this gentleman people as the deliverers of the country 
being to ask for Napoleon personally the from the nightmare of the Empire. But 
least unfavorable conditions. This inter- the pride of the French was touched to 
view has been reported in divers versions the quick when Germany talked of tak- 
by General IV Wimpffen, General Du- ing Alsatia; and. rock I ess as ii was to 
I- rot, and bv Bismarck himself. But all declare, as the government did later on, 
ai^rec in saving that it was during a con- that France would not yield up a stone 
versation at that time that the Germans of her fortresses or a handful of her ter- 
rirst raised the question of the cession of ritory, the declaration represented the 
Alsatia and of the German pail of Lor- unanimous opinion of the nation at that 
raino. "After some preliminary re- moment. General De Wimpffen con- 
marks, Counl Von Bismarck coming ducted himself with becoming dignity 
to speak about the probabilities of during this difficult and vexatious inter- 
peace," says General De Wimpffen in view, anil asked for his troops which had 
his account, "declared to me that fought so well the conditions which had 
Prussia had n very linn intention of ex- been given in days gone by to the gar- 
.- 1 , • 1 j 1 1 o not only a war indemnity of four risous of Mayence and Genoa and of Ulin ; 
milliards of francs, but more than that but Count Von Bismarck set this severe 

the cession of Alsatia and German condition: ••The French army must lay 

Lorraine. 'This is the only guarantee down its arms and be sent into Ger- 

offered us. because France is always many." Count Von Bismarck added that, 

threatening lis, and we must have as a if this condition were not complied with, 

solid protection a good advanced stra- Are would be opened at six o'clock in the 

teoical line."' morning. "Resistance," he told the 

It is probable that a good advanced unfortunate French delegates, " is quite 

strategical line was of more importance impossible; you have neither food nor 

in the eves of the military' and political munitions; your army is decimated; 

authorities iu Germany than the senti- our artillery is established in batteries 

mental aspects of the Alsatian question, around the whole town, and could blow 

This cool statement of Bismarck — that, up your troops before they could make 

he intended to wrest from France one of the least movement of consequence." 

her fairest provinces and a goodly portion General De Wimpffen told the conquer- 

,,f another — was not at first taken ors thai France had not wished the war ; 

seriously by the French populations, that she was drawn into it by an agita- 

But, when they fully understood that it tion which was entirely on the surface; 

was ihe conqueror's wish to take Alsatia, that the French nation was more pacific 

a erv of horror and rebellion went up. than the Germans were pleased to 

Jt was this which made the feeling dur- believe; that, all its aspirations were 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



253 



towards industry, commerce, art, and, 
possibly, a little too much towards well- 
being and luxury. " Do not," he said, 
with significant emphasis, " force France 
to learn anew the trade of arms. If you 
exact only a just indemnity, and do not 
wound the patriotic fibre of France by 
asking for territorial cession, you will 
act well for the durable peace between 
our countries." But De Wimpffen, de- 
spite his eloquence, could obtain from 
the Germans no promise, save that the 
fire should be opened from the batteries 
at nine o'clock in the morning instead of 
six. if the conditions demanded were not 
complied with. 

At (his juncture the Emperor's aide-de- 
camp begged to be heard, and Count 
Von Bismarck said he was now ready to 
listen to him. "The Emperor," said 
General Castelnau, " charged me to 
make the observation to His Majesty 
that he had sent him his sword without 
conditions, and had personally given 
himself up absolutely at his mercy ; but 
that lie had acted so only in the hope 
thai the King of Prussia would be 
touched by so complete a surrender, 
that he would know how to appreciate 
it, and that in consideration of it he 
would he good enough to accord to the 
French army a more honorable capitu- 
lation, to which it had won the right by 
its courage." 

Count Von Bismarck thought a mo- 
ment in silence ; then he said, " Is that 
all ':' " 

The General answered that it was. 

"But whose is the sword that the 
Emperor Napoleon III. has given up?" 
said Bismarck. " Is it the sword of 
France, or is it his own particular 
sword? It' it is that of France, the con- 
ditions can lie singularly modified, and 
your message would have a. very grave 
character." 



'• It is only the sword of the Emperor," 
said General De Castelnau. 

At this point, according to the recital 
of General De Wimpffen and numerous 
other French versions. Count Von 
Moltke broke out quite joyfully : " In 
that case, nothing is to he changed in 
the conditions;" and he added, "the 
Emperor will naturally obtain lor his 
person whatever he is pleased to ask 
for." The French officers thought there 
might lie a secrel divergence of opinion 
between Counl Von Bismarck and Count 
Von Moltke; that the diplomat was not 
SOrry to see the war Hearing its close; 
while the General, on the contrary, was 
anxious to continue. The French delight 
in picturing Von Moltke as a sinister 
and cruel old man, whose ambition is 
tempered in no sense by mercy, and who, 
t<> justify one of his mathematical cal- 
culations, would wade breast high in 
blood. 

When General De Wimpffen went 
back to the hall-crazed inhabitants of 
Sedan they got down upon their knees 
to him and clutched his garments, and 
begged him not to sign the surrender. 
Il was one o'clock in the morning on the 
2d of September when he knocked at 
the Emperor's door. The Emperor had 
gone to lied. Outside, the chain of hills 
was covered with corpses; the burning 
village of Bazeilles sent up its smoke to 
heaven ; the French flag was dishonored ; 
the enemy's invasion was triumphant; 
the road to Paris was open ; the Empire 
was lost ; but the Emperor had gone to 
bed ! 

At six o'clock in the morning General 
De Wimpffen called a council of war <>i 
the generals commanding army corps, 
those commanding divisions, and those 
at the head of the artillery and engineer 
corps forming a part of it. The com- 
manding general briefly told his comrades 



2")-l EUROPE J.V ST011M AND CALM. 

the result of his mission. ■•From the wearing the grand cordon of the Legion 
very first words of our conversation," f Honor. He was quite pale, but be- 
lie said, " ] recognized that Count Von trayed no emotion; and his attention 
Moltke, unfortunately, had a complete W as absorbed by a cigarette, which he 
knowledge of our situation, and that he W as tranquilly rolling. For a moment 
knew very well that the army was out of a ft er the carriage had appeared it seemed 
food and munitions. Count Von Moltke as if the crowds of soldiers and citizens 
told me thai during the whole battle of wno were thoroughly enraged against 
yesterday we had f'oughl an army of the Imperial occupant of the vehicle 
two hundred and twenty thousand men, were about to spring upon the author of 
which had surrounded us on all sides, their woes and tear him to pieces; but 
'General,' he said, -we are disposed no one made a movement. A footman 
to give your army, which has fought so j n greeu ii very pushed his way insolently 
well to-day, the most honorable condi- through the masses. Behind the car- 
tions; but they must be amenable to our r iage ,..,,,„. g r0 oins covered with gold 
government's policy. We demand the [ ace :lll(1 braid; in fact, the Emperor 
capitulation of the French army. It W ent to his imprisonment in the same 
must he prisoner of war. The officers stv lc with which lie used to arrive on 
Shall keep their swords and their personal the lawn of Longchamp on the day of 
property. The weapons of the soldiers the Grand 1'rix. 

must bedeposited in some specified place One single voice cried " Vivel'Empe- 

in the town, to lie given up to us."' reu r!" A citizen threw himself in front 

General Do Wimpffcn then asked his f t he borses, seized by the legs a 

comrades if they thought it was possible CO rpse which was stretched in the middle 

still to go on with the fight. The ma- of the street, and dragged it hastily aside, 

jority answered no i two Generals only Napoleon passed on to his surrender, 
expressed the opinion that the army ,\1 ten o'clock General De Wimpffen 

should either defend itself within the returned to the Prussian head-quarters, 

fortress, or cut its way out at all hazards. arK ] n„, lv f ouuc j Napoleon, who had not 

They were told that the defense of Sedan vet been .,1,1,, to see tile King of Prussia, 

was impossible, because of the lack of alK i „|„, W as waiting lor tin- signature 

I' 1; 'hat the roads and streets were of the capitulation before he could have 

so crowded with soldiers and baggage |,j s interview. 

and ammunition wagons that if the Although the terms of this most im- 

enemy's fire were brought to bear upon portant surrender of modern times have 

the town there would be frightful car- Deen f te n published, it may be well to 

uage, without any useful result; and so q llo te them here. 
the two officers went over to the ma- 
jority. PROTOCOL. 

Shortly after this council of war broke Between the Undersigned — 
up there was a murmur in the crowd, and The chief of the general stuff of II is Majesty 

a carriage made its way slowlv through Kin 3 William, Commander-in-Chief of the 

(he throngs. This carriage contained German Army, and the General Co. ander-in- 

, ,, .,, ,, , , Chiet of the French armies, both furnished with 

the Emperor with three Generals, who .. ,, ,. ,, . „, . ... .,,.,,. 

tall powers from their Majesties King Y\ illiam 

were conversing with him in subdued and the Emperor Napoleon, the following con- 
tones. The Emperor was in uniform, vention has been concluded : — 



EUROPE IV STORM AND CALM. 



255 



Article 1. The army placed under the 
orders of General IV Wimpffen being at present 
surrounded by superior forces about Sedan is 
a prisoner of war. 

Article 2. Considering the valorous de- 
fence of tins army, exception is made for all 
the generals and officers, as well as for the 
special employes having the rank of officers, 
who will engage their written word of honor 
not to bear anus against Germany and to act 
in no manner against its interests up to the 
close of the present war. Officers and em- 
ployes who accept these conditions shall keep 
their arms and their personal property. 

Article 3. All other arms, as well as the 
material of the army, consisting of flags, eagles, 
cannons, horses, army equipage, munitions, 
etc. .shall be delivered up at Sedan to a military 
commission appointed by the commander-in- 
chief, to be given over immediately to the Ger- 
man commissioner. 

Article 4. The fortress of Sedan shall 
next be given up in its present condition, and 
not later than the evening of the 2d of Septem- 
ber, and placed at the disposition of His Maj- 
esty the King of Prussia. 

Article 5. Officers who do not make the 
engagement mentioned in Article 2. as well as 
the disarmed troops, shall he conducted away 
as prisoners classed with their regiments and 
corps and in military order. This n ensure 
will begin on the 2d of September and finish 
on the3d. This detachment will be conducted 
on to tin- banks of the Meuse, near [ges, there 
to he handed over to the German commission- 
ers by their officers, who will then give the 
command to tluir sub-officers. Military 
physicians, without exception, shall remain be- 
hind to take care ot the wounded. 

Given at Fresnois, the 2d of September, 
INTO. 

Signed. De Wimpffen. 

Yon Moltke. 

This was the end of the military his- 
tory of tin' Second Empire. 

"This surrender," says the eminent 
German writer Von Wickede, "is the 
most important Known in military his- 
tory. It is a greater one than that of 
the Saxons at Konigstein ; of the Prus- 
sian General Fink, at Mayence, in the 
Seven Years' "War ; of the Austrian Gen- 



eral Mack, near Ulm, in 1805; of lite 
Prussian General Prince Hohenlohe, at 
Prenslau, in 1806; of the French General 
Dupout, in 1809, at Baylen ; or of the 
Hungarian General Goergey, in 1849, at 
Villagos." The French, in short, gave 
up to the enemy at Sedan the Emperor, 
one French marshal, thirty-nine generals, 
two hundred and thirty officers of the 
general staff, two thousand and ninety- 
five officers, eighty-four thousand four 
hundred and thirty-three sub-officers and 
soldiers; four hundred field-pieces, one 
hundred and eighty other cannon, and 
thirty thousand quintals of powder. The 
Germans did not succeed in attaining 
this result without the vigorous employ- 
ment of two hundred and forty thou- 
sand troops, assisted from first to hist 
in the most intelligent manner by the 
operations of a tremendous artillery 
ci ii ps u ith five hundred cannon. 

Both Count Yon Bismarck and King 
William have given to the world their 
impressions of the curious events of the 
2d of September. Bismarck, in his 
report to the Kino of Prussia, written 
from Donchdry, says that General 
Reille came to him at six o'clock in the 
morning to say that the Emperor wished 
to see him, and had already left Sedan 

ome to him. Bismarck went forward 

about half way between DoneMry and 
Sedan, near Fresnois, to meet the Em- 
peror. "His Majesty was in an open 
carriage. Beside him were three supe- 
rior officers, while several others were 
on horseback near the carriage. Among 
these Generals, I knew personally Gen- 
erals Casteluau, Reille, — Moskau, who 
seemed to be wounded, — and Vaubert. 
When 1 reached the carriage I got 
down from my horse, stepped up to the 
door, and asked what were His Majesty's 
orders. The Emperor expressed his 
desire to see Your Majesty, lie ap- 



256 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

peared to have thought Your Majesty After a further conversation, in which 

was also at Donchery. I told him that Napoleon plainly saw that he had little 

Your Majesty's head-quarters were at to hope from the flexibility of his adver- 

Vendresse, three miles away. Then the sary, he went, out and sat down in front 

Emperor asked if Your Majesty had of the house, inviting Bismarck to sit, 

fixed a place to which he could go, and beside him. He then asked Bismarck 

what was my opinion about the matter, if it were possible to let the French army 

I answered thai 1 had arrived here in cross the Belgian frontier, so as to be 

complete darkness, that the country disarmed by the Belgians. " I hud 

was. consequently, entirely unknown to discussed this matter the previous even- 

me, but that I placed at His Majesty's ing," wrote Bismarck, "with General 

disposition the house I occupied at Don- Von Moltke ; 1 therefore refused to -enter 

cheiv. and that I would leave it at once, into this matter with the Emperor. I 

The Emperor accepted my offer, and did not take the initiative in the discus 

went on to Donchery. But he stopped sion of the political situation. The Em- 

a lew hundred paces from the bridge peror only alluded to it to deplore the 

over the Meuse, leading into the town, evil of the war, and to declare that he 

before a workman's house, which was himself had not wished for war, but that 

completely isolated, and he asked me he had been forced into it by the pressure 

if he could not slop there." Count Von of public opinion in France." 

Bismarck had this house examined, and Between nine and ten o'clock in the 

found thai il was n miserable hovel half morning, the chdteau of Bellevue, near 

filled with wounded and dying soldiers. Fresnois was chosen as the place to 

Bui I he Emperor halted there, and in- receive the Imperial prisoner, fount 

vited Bismarck to follow him into the Von Bismarck accompanied the Emperor 

house There, in a little room, fur- thither, preceded by an escort taken 

nished with only a table and two chairs, from the King of Prussia's cuirassiers 

the fallen Emperor and the successful regiment. Here General De Wimpffen 

diplomat had a conversation of an hour's and most of the members of fount Von 

duration. The Emperor insisted on his Moltke's staff were assembled, and here 

desire to gel the best terms for the ca- Napoleon remained until the capitulation 

pitulation. Bismarck told him that he was signed. 

could not negotiate about such matters, TheoldKingof Prussia, who had been 

as the military question had to be en- saluted every where throughout his army 

tirely decided between Generals V on on the previous evening with the echoes 

Moltke and De Wimpffen; but he asked of the national hymn, andwith impromptu 

the Emperor if he was disposed to negoti- illuminations, went out at eight o'clock 

ate for peace. The Emperor said, as a in the morning to look over the field of 

prisoner, he was not in a situation to battle. As he arrived on the field la' 

enter into negotiations. Bismarck then saw Yon Moltke coming to meet him. 

asked him what, in his opinion, was the and there learned of Napoleon's depart- 

representative power in France at that ure from Sedan. •• About ten o'clock." 

time; and the Emperor suggested the he says in his account, •• I came out 

o-overnmenl existing in Paris, meaning upon the heights near Sedan. At n, 

the regency of the Fmpress with her fount. Von Moltke and Bismarck came 

advisers. tome with the treaty of capitulation. At 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



25 7 



one o'clock, I started with Fritz (the 
name by which he always mentioned the 
Crown Prince) escorted by the cavalry 
of the general staff. I got down from 
my horse in front of the ch&teau, and 
the Emperor came out to meet me. The 
interview lasted about a quarter of an 
hour. We were both very much moved 
by meeting under such circumstances. 
I cannot express all I felt when 1 remem- 
bered that three years before 1 had seen 
the Emperor at the very height of his 
power." 

After this brief interview, the old 
King, followed by his brilliant staff, 
continued his journey across the battle- 
field. From Bazeilles to Illy, the hills 
and the fields were literally covered with 
dead men. Everywhere were dismounted 
cannon, broken guns, pillaged haver- 
sacks, ruined drums; here in the fields 
of beet-rcot or in the lines between the 
gardens, were heaps of men with their 
heads blown into fragments or their 
entrails escaping from gaping wounds 
in their abdomens. Here were men who 
had been struck dead in the act of kneel- 
ing to fire their guns ; and a writer, who 
went over the field of battle on this day, 
says that many of the corpses occupying 
still in death the attitude of life made 
the field of battle resemble a field peopled 
with wax figures. A visitor went up to a 
captain of the Twentieth of the French 
Hue, who was seated at the foot of a tree, 
holding his head in his hands, and ap- 
parently bending over a letter which he 
was holding open. The visitor touched 
the man on the shoulder, and the body 
fell forward. The officer had been dead 
for hours. 

Those who have been witnesses of a 
great battle, or who have been over a 
battle-field shortly after the collision, 
remember how they shrank instinctively 
from the first spectacles of horror, but 



how readily they became accustomed to 
the evidences of carnage, and how, little 
by little, a thirst for the accumulation of 
horrors stole upon them. One becomes 
rapidly accustomed to the sight of piled- 
up heaps of corpses, to the carcasses of 
horses torn and harrowed by shell and 
by bullets, to the village street with its 
evidences at every step of a sanguinary, 
hand-to-hand encounter, and to the little 
rivulets into which the blood has poured so 
as to turn their gurgling currents a pale- 
red. On the field of Sedan, death was 
in hundreds of cases hideous, and beyond 
description, for the shell-lire had been 
something more terrible than was known 
in any previous modern battle. Hun- 
dreds of heads were torn off, limbs were 
rent from their bodies, brains were scat- 
tered on the ground. Down by Bazeilles, 
companies had been literally torn to 
pieces. 

The French, for a long time after the 
battle of Sedan, published horrible tales 
of the massacre of women and children 
in Bazeilles by the Bavarians, and con- 
tinued to assert that hundreds of innocent 
persons were burned alive when the 
village was set on fire. That there was a 
frightful carnage in and about Bazeilles, 
no one would presume to deny ; but that 
the Germans deliberately burned any of 
the inhabitants is not susceptible of 
proof. General Von der Tann feltcalled 
upon to defend himself and his troops 
from the charge of supreme cruelty which 
had been brought against him, and his 
official report shows that, out of the total 
civil population of Bazeilles during the 
fight, the number of dead, wounded, and 
disappeared was thirty-nine, and the only 
persons burned or suffocated during the 
conflagration were two bedridden women, 
three men, and three children. 

General Von der Tann is the person- 
age who, when he was asked by his 



258 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 

Bavarians if they might sack a certain uniform of a French general ; his breast 
town in tlic south df France, in the Loire was covered with a number of orders, 
district, where they bad been rather rt was said that he had to borrow from 
roughly handled, answered, "Sack it the Prussian general who accompanied 
moderately ! Sack it moderately." 1 was him to Cassel 10,000 francs, in order 
tciM this al Versailles by a person who to give gratuities in the manner custom- 
heard it said. ary to emperors under any circum- 
On the 3d of September, at seven stances. This was certainly a sad fall 
o'cloclc iii the morning, the fallen for a monarch who, three weeks pre- 
Napoleon set, out, from the Chateau of viously, had enjoyed the largest civil list 
Bellevue for Germany by way of Bel- in Europe. 

giuin. His road led him past the most The reception of the Emperor in Ger- 

frightful part of the battle-field, and he many was respectful, though at Cologne 

must have been struck with the irony of the officers who accompanied him had to 

destiny when he remembered that not a restrain the crowd, who were inclined to 

great many years before he had affirmed a hostile demonstration. Some of the 

in a speech in a French city that the German papers remarked that Napoleon 

Empire meant peace. The greeting of was treated with singular kindness by a 

the Emperor on ids way through Bel- people who had. through him alone, lost 

gium was, on the whole, cordial, and he 1 .")(), ()(i() sons, brothers, and husbands. 

was repeatedly cheered, (hough in one The papers were tilled with joyful quips 

or two cities lie was hooted. lie ar- and jests, all bearing more or less upon 

rived in Bouillon at, five o'clock in the the captivity of the Emperor. At the 

afternoon on the 3d of September, and beginning of the war a German sent 

from thence went by rail to Liege, two louis for King William's Yerein for 

Cologne, and Cassel, where the beauti- the wounded ill Berlin, adding to his 

fill castle of Wilhelmshohe had been contribution these words, which became 

made ready for him. Among the Geuer- prophetic: "1 give two louis with a 

als who accompanied him into his will to King William's good Verein. lie 

captivity were Generals Douet, Lebrun, who will send the third Louis in is King 

Castelnau, De Reille, DeVaubert, Prince William, 1 opine." This doggerel be- 

Ney, Prince Murat, Prince Moskowa, came very popular iii Germany, and the 

and twenty other officers of various Verein in time acknowledged the receipt 

grades. A number of high Prussian of the third Louis. 

officers were also in his train. His The selection of Wilhelmshohe, or 
servants, carriages, and about eighty- William's Height , as a residence tor the 
live horses followed in a separate train. ex-Emperor during his captivity was the 
The carriage in which the Emperor trav- subject of much comment in the German 
elled to his captivity was simply a press. This is one of the most beauti- 
saloon belonging to the Luxembourg ful residences in Germany. It is some- 
railway, and often used by the Prince times called the Versailles of Cassel. 
of Flanders. It was divided into three The palace is a low but extensive build- 
compartments, one chief central saloon, ing, full of beautiful works of art, 
and two small coupes. The Emperor paintings, tapestries, marbles, just as 
occupied one of the latter, and rarely they were left by the Elector of Han- 
left it during the journey. He wore the over in 18G6, when he fell a prisoner to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



259 



King William of Prussia. It was here, lost its kink, and hung loosely down 
too, that Napoleon III.'s uncle, King to the corners of the mouth. The 



Jer6me, stayed during his sojourn 
in Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. 

Jerome had done much to make Wil- 
helmshohe resemble Versailles. On Na- 
poleon's arrival at the railway 
station at Cassel he was re- 
ceived with royal honors. A 
company of the Eightieth regi- 
ment of infantry sainted him 
just as they would have saluted 
the King of Prussia. The 
heads of the civil and military 
departments met him and gave 
him an official welcome. Na- 
poleon looked weary and as if 
he suffered from liver com- 
plaint. His eyes were dull 
and his walk was heavy. A 
single hussar rode before his 
carriage as he was taken to 
the castle. Soldiers turned 
out and received him with 
drums sounding and presented 
arms. Dinner was laid for 
twenty persons, and Napoleon 
and his suite did ample justice to the 
viands spread before them. The King of 
Prussia sent down his own cook and first 
chamberlain and several of his servants 
from Berlin to Wilhelmshohe, and all 
were ordered to pay the greatest atten- 
tion to their guest. Here Napoleon 
seemed suddenly struck with old age. 
He passed entire mornings, now bent 
over in an easv-ehair napping and mus- 
ing, now in a long gallery of the con- 
servatory, leaning upon a cane or on the 
arm of his faithful doctor, Conneau. 
As in the words of one who saw him 
at Wilhelmshohe only a few days after 
his arrival there, he had grown old, weak, 
spare, and his hair was gray. The 
Napoleonic curl hail disappeared, the 
characteristic Napoleon moustache had 



man of the 2d of December had be- 
come the man of the "id of Septem- 
ber, after a reign of eighteen years, 
less one quarter, neither a day more 












NATOLEON III. 


PRISONER 
IIOIIE. 


AT 


WILHELMS 



nor a day less, as old Nostradamus 
prophesied. 

The German writers, indulging in 
various caprices about the war, discov- 
ered that it was not strange that Moltke 
should have vanquished Napoleon, be- 
cause the letter M plays a great r&le in 



260 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



the historyof the Napoleons. Marbozuf, 
say these plodding Germans, was the 
first to recognize the genius of Napoleon 
I. in the young military scholar. Ma- 
rengo was the first great battleof < reneral 
Bonaparte; Mulcts cleared out of Italy 
before him; Mortier was his favorite 
general; Moreau betrayed him; Murat 
was his first martyr; Marie Louise, the 
companion of his greatesl fortune ; Mos- 
COIO his deepest abyss; and Melleun a 
diplomat whom he could nut master. 
Massenet, Mortier, Marmont, MacDon- 
«/</, Ma mt, urn! Marcey were among his 
marshals; and twenty-six of his division 
generals had M as the initial letter 'if 
their names. His first battle was at 
Montermolt; his last. Mont Si. Jean, at 
Waterloo. He won the battles of Jficles- 



siniii. Mondovi, Marengo, on the Mos- 
kowa, Mireil, Montepean, ami Montenau. 
Milan was the first aud Moskoiva the last 
place which he entered as victor. At 
St. Helena Montholon was his first 
chamberlain, and Marehant his compan- 
ion, lie lost Egypt through Menon, and 
took the l'ope prisoner through Meiolles. 
lie was conspired against by Mallet; and 
three of his ministers were called Maret, 
Montalivet, and Mallieu. His last resi- 
dence in France was Malmaison. Look- 
ing up the M's in the history of Napoleon 
III., the Germans begin with what they 
call the French defeats at Mete, then 
the disaster at Sedan under MacMahon ; 
then the generalship of Moltke ; and so 
they go on in their innocent array of 
alliteration. 



EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 



261 



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. 



A Solemn Situation:- — Return of the Exiles.— The Spoils at the Tuileries. — Advance of the Germans. — 
The Military Strength of (he French Capital. — The Sixteenth Siege of Paris. — Closing in. — 
( lurious Fights in the Capital. —General Trochu's Review. — A Visit to Asnieres. — Prussian Prison- 
ers.— The Fight al Chatillon. — The French Retreat. — The Occupation of Versailles. — The 
Crown Prince of Prussia visits the Old Home of Louis XIV. 



A GREAT silence fell upon Paris 
for a few days after the declara- 
tion of the Republic. People came and 
went as if they were carrying' heavy 
loads. The responsibilities of the mo- 
ment weighed upon every one's shoulders 
alike. Men had awakened from a 
dream, and were facing a harsh reality ; 
the enemy was in front, and civil war, 
despite the greatest vigilance and 
adroitness on the part of the political 
managers, was beginning to appear in 
the background. " France," said a 
writer in the '■'■Revue des Deux Mcmdes," 
in describing these days, " litis taken 
possession of herself once more, with- 
out battle, without bloodshed, and by 
a kind of sudden effort of patriotism 
and despair in presence of the enemy." 
Gambetta's proclamation announcing 
the formation of the government of 
National Defence was received with 
general favor, but without much ap- 
plause in Paris. The great capital had 
spent all its enthusiasm on the day of 
the 4th ; Marseilles went wild with joy ; 
Montpellier, Havre, Valence, Nantes, 
and Lyons gave themselves up to re- 
joicings, which were perhaps reasonable 
enough, as all these cities fancied that 
Paris would now take " the deliverance 
in hand," and would carry it trium- 
phantly to a close. The city of Lille 
sent a despatch to the capital saying 
that the population of Paris had de- 
served well of the country. Gambetta 



sent the new representative of the 
people to penetrate into besieged Stras- 
bourg and take his place there as pre- 
fect of the Republic. Victor Hugo came 
home from exile, and had a temperate 
ovation at the Northern railway station, 
where he had made a speech saying that 
" Paris could never be captured by as- 
sault;" and it is noteworthy that the 
Prussians did not try to demonstrate 
the untruth of this remark. The old 
poet had said, before his return, " I 
shall inscribe myself as a national 
guard in the ward where 1 shall take 
up my abode, and I will go on to the 
ramparts with my gun on my shoulder.'' 
He brought back with him the almost 
old-fashioned phraseology, which was 
considered so vigorous and manly when 
he left France after the amp d'Etat. 
In his train came the other men who 
had been proscribed during the reign 
of Louis Napoleon, Edgar Quinet and 
Louis Blanc, whose first visit was to 
Jules Favre, who had been instrumental 
in getting him sent into exile. The 
more enlightened Radicals forgot their 
own quarrels with the moderate Repub- 
licans, and rallied with them to the 
defence of the country. The recogni- 
tion of the new Republic by the minister 
of the United States was eminently 
gratifying to the little group of depu- 
ties who had undertaken so formidable 
a. task. 

A committee was intrusted with the 



262 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

examination of the great number of pri- non. if necessary, be mounted on its 

vate papers found in the palace of the walls? "A simple line of soldiers placed 

Tuileries, and was instructed to publisl tside the reach of the guns, and par- 

them for the information of the public, allel to the outer works," said the military 

1 1 1 1 1 the papers found had no relation to authorities, "would require ninetv-six 

the mysterious scandals or the social thousand men ! ' How then could the 

dramas so frequent under the Empire. Prussians bring up a force tremendous 

The committee discovered that in Na- enough to establish a siege of Paris? The 

poleon's library an elaborate memoir city was divided into five great military 

destined to enlighten the Emperor of centres internally; and each of these 

the French on the state of the mi! i- centres was in itself a detached fort, 

tary forces of the Confederation of the Within and without, the noble citadel 

north of Germany had scarcely been was strong. Besides, could not the hun- 

touched, but thai Roman medals, bits dreds of thousands of men within the 

of history and inscriptions, calculated to walls swoop out by night and crush the 

figure in the work on Ca;sar, with which daring invader? It was evident that be- 

the Emperor had amused himself, and fore the walls of Paris the country was 

romantic projects, like that for annexa- to be avenged. Whether on the side 

tion of Belgium, had absorbed the Im- towards the Marne — where were the 

perial attention. In the library of the formidable redoubts of Noisy, Martreuil, 

Empress the evidence of the ultra-cleri- Boissiere, and Fontenay, and where the 

cal turn of her mind was to lie found on famous camp of St. Maur was en- 

every hand. The bones of saints and trenched ; whether away beyond on the 

pious relies were hung upon the walls, cornel' made by the junction of tlie Seine 

and contrasted strangely with the painted and the Marne, where stood the proud 
ceilings filled with Cupids and figures of tort of Charentou, including within its 
gods and goddesses. The works of Proud- walls a space for the encampment of two 
lion were side by side with the fantastic hundred thousand men ; or whether, 
romances of the eighteenth century again, upon the southward line, on the 
or severe treatises on religious duty, left bank of the Seine, where stood in 
" There was," says a French writer, " a stout brotherhood the foils of Ivry, 
curious mixture of rice-powder and in- P.icetre, Montrouge, and Yanves ; or, 
cen-.e in the Empress's boudoir, quite yet again, upon the western line, strong 
characteristic of this Spanish piety." by nature, and stronger still with its 
All this time the Prussians were com- proud Mont Valerien, the prince of Part- 
ing rapidly on, and provincial troops sian strongholds, controlling all the coun- 

were l ring into Paris, the only great try round about — there might lie an 

rallying point now left. These country attack, there seemed no cause for appre- 

folk, — the Bretons, the Bourguignons, in hension. Here was a grand " circum- 

their blue Mouses, the stalwart men of ference line." thirty miles long, around 

Auvergne, and the lithe and sinewy chil- which there was complete telegraphic 

dren of the south, felt a new confidence as communication, and from which there 

they set their feet within the walls of the were subterranean passages for sorties. 

Capital. For how could it lie taken? Citizens and the soldiers felt a kind 

Had it not sixteen hundred regular siege- of joy in the prospect of the coming 

guns? and could not live thousand can- conflict, and never dreamed of failure. 



ET'IWPR IN STORM AND CALM. 



2G3 



General Trochu began to talk about the 
" useless mouths," and to semi out of 
the city day by day large processions of 
vagabonds, of suspected persons, of 
women and children who were likely to 
fail of means of support. Every one 
who remained was expected to contrib- 
ute heartily to the sturdy defence, and, 
possibly, to offensive movements. 

This was the sixteenth siege of l'aris. 
In the year 5:3, B.C., Labienus, the 
energetic lieutenant of Julius Csesar, 
laid siege to the island on which the 
Lutetians had built the Paris of that day, 
and so worried them that, after a time, 
they burned their town, and retired as 
best they could. Five hundred and 
thirty years after this siege the Romans 
held the town, and Childeric, the first 
chief of the Franks, cast covetous eyes 
upon the long rows of noble buildings 
spread out on either bank of the Seine ; 
and. by-and-by, he laid siege with suc- 
cess. Then came the Normans in 865 ; 
and they pillaged church and monastery, 
ami threw many of the inhabitants into 
the flames. Driven out, they came 
again shortly after; and this time, the 
Parisians repeated the trick of their 
forefathers, the Lutetians, — they burned 
their own town, and retreated. Once 
more, in 861, an enormous band of 
Norman brigands arrived to pillage 
Paris, besieged it, and took .it, but 
found little therein About this time, 
the idea of extensive fortifications arose, 
and walls were built in haste ; but before 
they were completed, back came the 
persistent Normans, with an army of 
thirty thousand men, and laid a siege 
which lasted two years. As the Nor- 
mans were about to retire, Charles le 
Gros capitulated, to his own dreadful 
disgrace, and made a shameful peace ; 
whereupon he was impeached and lost 
his throne. 



In 1358 the Dauphin tried in vain to 
take l'aris. and in the following year 
the King of England tried, and had also 
to give it no. Put in 142,") tiie English 
had better success, and Lutetia bowed 
her neck to them for fourteen years. 
In 1427 Charles VII. tried to reconquer 
the city; but the English laughed him to 
scorn. In 1402 the Duke of Burgundy 
ravished all the country around, and sat 
down to a siege, but had poor luck, in 
1464 the Comte De Charlois surrounded 
the city with his men-at-arms, but soon 
went away crestfallen. In 1536 Charles 
Quint, the then king, battered down the 
walls. Under Henry III. and Henry 
IV. Paris sustained the world-renowned 
siege of 1593; and in 1S14 the allies, 
after a short delay outside the gates, 
rambled at their own sweet will through 
the avenues of the town. 

< >ne of the sights in the gardens and 
public parks during these few days, 
between the declaration of the Republic 
and the final investing of the city, was 
the daily drill of the citizens. Thou- 
sands of men, dressed in their every-day 
clothes, with blue sashes tied about their 
waists, and numbers on their breasts, 
went awkwardly, but with great deter- 
mination, through the military evolutions 
under the directions of angular sergeants, 
who never smiled, no matter how ridicu- 
lous the butcher and the baker looked in 
their soldier clothes. The National 
Guard, in its stiff, tall hats, and its blue 
uniforms, daily did twelve hours' duty on 
the fortifications. The hotel-keepers, 
the merchants, the tradesmen of all 
classes, shut up their shops, and re- 
nounced all idea of profit. The Turcos 
and the Spahis, some eighteen thousand 
strong, were praised and fSted wherever 
they went within the city. Hundreds 
of refugees from the environs of Sois- 
sons, fugitives from Sedan, people who 



264 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



were half-starved, covered with dust, and 
in many cases with mud, their garments 
in tatters, came straggling in. I saw 
men who had been without food for days, 
and who sobbed over the bits of bread. 
The most affecting spectacle was the 
daily arrival of the peasant families from 
the little towns around Paris. They 
came in by hundreds upon hundreds, 
General Trochu growling, and announc- 
ing his intention to pass them on through 
the city to a safer part of France. But, 
poor things! they never left the com- 
fortable shelter of the walls when once 
within. They camped in sheds, in grana- 
ries, in railway carriages no longer in use, 
in cafe's, which the proprietors generously 
offered them. There were ten thousand 
refugees from Strasbourg alone. 

All the beggars drove a thriving trade 
in tricolor Republican "liberty-trees" 
and caricatures of the deposed Emperor. 
If a wounded soldier stopped on the 
street, to talk, he was surrounded at 
once by hundreds of eager listeners, 
and he usually got a hatful of money. 
The populations refused to believe that 
MacMahon was not dead. Tin- story 
that he was a prisoner was distasteful. 
On the Champ de Mars thousands of 
troops paraded ; along the river opposite 
Trocadero a huge stockade was placed; 
ami on the heights of Passy fortifica- 
tions bristled. 

On the 11th of September General 
Trochu held a review, and the array of 
forces was certainly imposing. Even 
the Parisians, with their tendency to ex- 
aggerate the numbers of their defenders, 
had not believed that the town contained 
such a gigantic army. The line of 
troops extended from the Arc de Tri- 
oinphe to the Bastile, and numbered 
three hundred thousand men. And 
what a chattering, motley, noisy line of 
troops it was! Every complexion and 



every accent and dialect in France were 
represented. Jules Favre ami the other 
members of the Provisional ( io\ ■eminent, 
as it was then called, had wished to ac- 

c pany General Trochu as he rode 

along the line ; but he had objected, and 
said, il You cannot ride, and you do not 
want to make yourselves ridiculous be- 
fore the Parisians." Si iion & vero v ben 
trovato, for Favre and Gambetta would 
have looked rather absurd caricoling be- 
fore the National Guard and the Com- 
munists in. esse. Immense crowds of 
women, all wearing the tricolor, and all 
babbling like magpies, followed the Gen- 
eral and his staff, commenting and chaf- 
fing the workmen and the bourgeois, and 
indulging in lively curses upon the in- 
vading Prussians. 

On the day after the review T went 
out at dusk to Asnieres, to discover 
whether the bridges over the Seine were 
to be blown up, and 1 found thousands 
of men, half-naked, toiling on the outer 
works of the fortifications. As yet there 
was no water in the ditches ; hut it 
was only the work of a few hours to fill 
the moats. The walls looked more 
formidable than ever before. Here the 
approaches were distinctly difficult. As 
I arrived outside the walls the sunset 
had cast, a certain glory on the western 
sky that threw everything into relief, 
except the dark outlines of the gigantic 
fort of Mont Valerien : and this rose 
through a kind of tremulous mist, frown- 
ing and sombie. The hills and woods 
beyond made a black background, into 
which the great mass of masonry slowly 
melted, ami was lost to view. For the 
first time 1 realized that Paris is a forti- 
fied city. On whichever side I gazed I 
saw a grim, high Mall, with a black- 
nosed cannon leering from its top, 
stretching away, and the sentinels prom- 
enading, — vainglorious cockneys, no 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



265 



doubt, but willing to do their best for the 
defense of their country. Asnier.es w:is 
deserted ; the pretty water-side villas 
were empty ; there was nothing to eat 
in the town. I had to satisfy two or 
three venerable fanatics that I was not 
a spy, after which they told me that the 
Prussian Lancers had been seen the day 
before in the neighborhood of Bas 
Meudon and Sfivres, and that the treas- 
ures of porcelain had been brought in 
great haste from the factory at Sevres 
into l'aris. 

Next morning, when I went out upon 
the street, I found all Paris in emotion. 
All my French friends were livid with 
excitement. The advance of the Ger- 
man army had appeared close to Paris ; 
some Prussian prisoners had been taken, 
and were now on the streets, being- 
paraded up and down. I went to see 
them. Near the C'af<5 Amiricain stood 
one of eight Uhlans, who had been dis- 
mounted, wounded, and captured. He 
had been allowed to retain his lance, as 
his captors fancied that this would give 
him an artistic flavor. The crowd, above 
which he towered like a Brobdignag, was 
enormous ; and some of the market- 
women, who had been having a perpetual 
holiday since the declaration of the Re- 
public, cried out, " Down with them ! 
Death to them ! " But no one offered vio- 
lence. Some of the prisoners afterwards 
complained that they had had their 
decorations torn off ; but none of them 
were hurt. The moment any one at- 
tempted to incite to bloodshed, a man 
would climb up to the nearest, elevated 
point and "entreat his brethren not to 
bring disgrace on to the Republic : " 
whereupon everybody would shout for 
order, and the amiable goddess, Reason, 
would resume her throne. 

As soon as the Germans were signalled 
in the immediate vicinity, fires were set 



in the forests as a warning to the popu- 
lations that had not already retreated. 
This measure was misunderstood in 
Paris, and was attributed to the van- 
dalism of the Prussians; and thousands 
of people Mocked up to the heights of 
Montmartre to see the fires and to pro- 
claim that the Prussians as they came in 
were burning all the villages right and 
left. In the wood of Montmorency, at 
Stains, and at Le Bourget, the tires 
raged for hours. All along the route 
from Drancy to Boudy, innumerable 
small fires, like ground stars, were 
twinkling. The rumors were magnified 
as they drifted down from the heights of 
Montmartre to the grand boulevards, 
and the Parisians went to rest that night 
convinced that the Prussians had burned 
at least a hundred towns, whereas they 
had really burned nothing at all. 

On the 15th, as a passenger train 
rolled into the station of Senlis, it was 
taken by the Prussians. On the same 
day, near Chantilly, another train was 
shot at by Prussians posted along the 
line ; and in the afternoon the governor 
of Paris received a despatch from 
Vineennes, saying that the advance- 
guard of a large German column had 
been seen between Creteil and Neuilly 
on the Marne. This looked very much 
as if Paris would shortly be invested. 

On the 16th the Orleans line was cut. 
On the 17th a Prussian detachment 
crossed the Seine at Choisy-le-Roi ; on 
the 18th a strong column crossed the 
river at Villeneuve St. Georges. Here 
there was an encounter, which the jour- 
nals of Paris at the time called the first, 
battle near the capital. I found, on the 
evening of the 18th, that I had to choose 
between imprisonment in Paris during 
Hie siege, and the chances of witnessing 
the operations from without. I deter- 
mined to visit the lines in front of 



L'Cli EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Strasbourg, and then, if possible, l<> who liad attacked the German column as 

make my way through the occupied ii was moving along the highway. The 

country, to the German head-quarters, a forests in the neighbor!] I of Sceaux, 

trip which, I thought, would occupy a( Uagneux, and Clamart had not been 
besl tliree or four days, but which thinned away to allow of military move- 
proved much longer and more difficull ments ; and tin- Germans readily found 
than 1 had imagined. shelter there. "Ambuscaded In-hind the 

I left Paris on the evening of the trees," says Claretie, "the Prussians 

18th by one of the last trains which fired exactly as they did at Forbach, 

went out <>!' the capital, and the last directly into the masses of advancing 

words 1 heard within the walls were: French troops. The disaster was great. 

" It will all be over in a fortnight. The Some of our Mobile battalions fired into 

Germans will be pushed back. They the IGtli French line, while the Zouaves, 

(■annul resist the tremendous forces funned out of the remnants of the regi- 

vvithin the capital." 1 went to Rouen, ments of the Ardennes, Med in disorder, 

from thence to Dieppe, thence to Dover, panic-stricken, throwing away their guns, 

thence to Ostend, and so presently and dragging -with them in this precipi- 

found myself again in Germany and on tale retreat the greater pari of the army, 

the way to Strasbourg. A regiment of cavalry composed of 

If it had not been for the unfortunate cuirassiers, of carabiuiers, of chasseurs, 

affair at Chatillon, the prophecy which I of gendarmes, a mixed regiment, which, 

heard as I left the walls of Paris might in its picturesque amalgamation gave a 

have proved true; but the rapidly ad- melancholy idea of the few forces left to 

vancing enemy, which ought to have France — this regiment tried to stop the 

received a severe check, was allowed to runaways. The artillery kept its posi- 

eflect an easy victory in its endeavor to lion, and bravely answered the German 

take the plateau of Chatillon ; and it was batteries; but it was all in vain: the 

not only successful in doing this, but it troops wavered and fled. From the 

created a veritable panic among the heights of the redoubt of Chatillon, so 

poorly disciplined troops with whom hastily abandoned by us, the German 

it came into contact. On the 18th of batteries sent their shells into our dis- 

September, General Ducrot, who had ordered regiments." 

already escaped from the Prussian lines M. Francisque Sarcey, the celebrated 

and got safely back to Paris, occupied, critic, who saw this retreat from the 

with four divisions of the infantry of the plateau of Chatillon, thus describes it: 

line, the heights of Villejuif and those of " I shall never forget the dolorous sen- 

Mendon. In tin' evening, he made a sation which pierced my heart like a 

cavalry reconnoissance to see what were sharp arrow. Here was a retreat in all 

the movements of the enemy. lie was its hideousness. Soldiers of all branches 

naturally anxious to hinder the ( ieriuans of the servic came disbanded, straggling, 

from continuing their march upon Ver- or in broken platoons, some without 

sailles, which seemed to Ik- their objective their haversacks or weapons, some still 

point. At daybreak on the 1 9th there armed, but all stamped with the Stigma 

was a general engagement, in which the of desertion. Ambulance wagons, mas- 
division of General d'Ex^a took a part, terless horses. broken ammunition 
sustaining some of the Francs-Tireurs, carriages, strayed to and fro in a dis- 



EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 



267 



ordered crowd. On either side of the 
road, on the sidewalks, there was an 

enormous mass of women and children, 
anxiously asking about the survivors, or 
heaping reproaches and menaces upon 
the drunken and discouraged soldiery, 
because there were wretches in uniform 
who were intoxicated and who staggered 
along against the walls. Cries, songs, 
imprecations, laughter, weeping, the 
groans of the wounded and the oaths of 
the wagoners, and, over and above all, 
the indistinct growling of the crowd, the 
far-off thunder, like that of the ocean in 
days of tempest, was most impressive. 
VV e came hack to Paris in despair. On 
the boulevards we heard that twenty thou- 
sand of our soldiers had been completely 
crushed by one hundred thousand Prus- 
sians, near Clamart, that the whole 
army had thrown away its weapons, de- 
claring that it could fight no longer, and 
that the victorious troops were pursuing 
the retreating French. 

"The National Guards, furious, took 
the deserters by the collar, called them 
cowards, and carried them off, with many 
blows from their musket-butts, to the 
police stations, or to the Place Vend&me. 
The exasperated crowd spat iii the faces 
of the miserable men who had dishonored 
their uniform ami the name of French- 
men. There was a universal cry against 
the Zouaves and the Lancers, and their 
execution was clamored for." 

Meantime the Prussians had installed 
themselves in Versailles. They had sur- 
rounded the old town on all sides from 
a distance, as early as the 18th : and the 
Uhlans had had confided to them the 
task of discovering the condition of the 
town, and entering it for a requisition. 
The enemy appears to have had a very 
correct estimate of the number and 
quality of the forces there, and to have 
determined to have the head-quai 



of one of its armies at Versailles, both 
for the romance and the practical ad- 
vantage of the thing. The .Mayor of 
Versailles, rejoicing in his new-found 
Republican dignity, was assembling H 
wise men of the place for a parley con- 
cerning precautionary measures, on the 
morning of the 18th, when it was an- 
nounced that three Hussars, each of 
whom wore a skull and crossbones on 
his cap. were outside the town, and de- 
sired to speak with His Honor the Mayor. 
These bold horsemen came up through 
a longlineof the National Guard, few of 
whom had any guns. Hut the Mayor re- 
fused to see them unless they could 
present the authority of some General : 
therefore they were withdrawn. Early the 
next morning an aide-de-camp, followed 
by a single horseman, came again to - :e 
the municipal authorities. lie spent the 
greater part of the morning in c >nv< 
tiou with the Mayor, representing to him 
the uselcssness of resistance. But his 
talk, emphatic though it was, perhaps 
did not produce so much 
thunder of the cannon, which was now 
heard between Versailles and Sceaux. 
This cannonading appears to have con- 
vinced the good Mayo]- that there was a 
large' Prussian army at hand, and he was 
wavering between capitulation and a 
hopeless resistance, when there suddenly 
arrived from the same direction as the 
aide-de-camp a captain of engineers, also 
an aid of the General commanding the 
Fifth Prussian corps. The keys of the 
magazines, in which provisions and for- 
ji were stored, were now given up. 
and by this time cannonading was heard 
on the farm of Villa Coublau, only a 
very short distance from Versailles. 
This Doise came from General Vino - 
valiant attempt to defend the- height- of 
Meudon, — an attempt which was unsuc- 
cessful. The railway trains, to and 



lV,N 



. \ -/■"/.''/ AXD < i " 



from Paris had been suspended the 
ilav before. About uoon the Mayor 
appeared before the gate at the end of 
in.- \\ enue de Paris, and read tin I s 

ic capitulation of the city and the 
forces in it. A striking passage in this 

iinenl was that strictly specifying that 
all monuments in the historic town should 
''■> respected. The French probably re- 
membered the fui - of the Prussians 
up the Champs Elys£es, in 1814, and 
how the\ broke the statues at Malmaison. 



the enemy entered by the Place d'Armes, 
tlu> Rue St. Pierre, the Avenue d< S 
Cloud, and tin 1 load from St. Germain, 
the inhabitants, overcome by curiosity, 
gathered in great crowds to see them. 

All heads were uncovered as a little 
band of Zouaves, bareheaded and 
wounded, made prisoners, just at the 

ose of the fight, were hauled alone- by 

the dusty Germans, who were munching 
bread or unconcernedly sniok _ their 
pipes. There were a iv\\ cries of ■• Vive 



) 








FRENCH GUARD MOBILE IN" THE CAMP OF 3T. MATTE. 



Oueofthe Lieutenants of the National 
Guard, - Vet sailles, was then 

invited to a parley with the Prussian Gen- 
eral, lie was obliged to pass <■>, 
field of battle, and. while there, hi - 
the 1 ussians li ftiug thi wo mded into 
ulances marked, '■ Hospital of Ver- 
sailles. Palace." ••This for the Trianon," 
etc. l'i f this upon him can Det- 

ained than described. [Ie next 
saw the inimi ns Pruss i mm tiling 
away ' sittous it had suc- 

led in hi ■ a » id, and 

rapidh Vers s. Then 

about t« d men in this 

column, although the French put the 
uumber as - d. As 



fa B e! " to " hich no i ibjections 

were made: and in an hour or two. the 
>■ 1 helmets of the Bavarians and 
their crests were seen throughout the 
woods and the gardens of Versailles. 
I' city placed at the m of its 

eaptors twenty-sis oxen, ten hog-heads 
>'i wine, and three hundred thousand 
fran>--' wi I ol »rain and forage. Large 
mm:' - the German troops pass 
direeth out oi the city to go forward to 
positions near St. Germain audi St, 
Cloud : and others inaugurated an 

- . and. having gorged them- 
5, 1 usual i recautions for 

their own safety ant that of their capt- 
ured gi ii i Is. 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



2(>9 



CIIArTER TWENTY-EK ! IIT. 

Enemies Face to Face. — Jules Favrc and Bismarck at Ferrieres. — Personal ( lharacteristics of the I feiman 
< lhancellor. — His Notions about France. — A Porti'ait of him by Favre. — His Opinion of Napoleon 
III. — "He Deceived Everybody." — The Crushing Terms Demanded of France. — The Force 
of Carieatun a. — M. Favre considers his Mission at an End. 



DURING tiio.se terrible days of the 
18th and 19th (if September, clays 
which brought such anxiety, and were 
full of so much 1 litter suspense for Paris, 
an interview destined to prolong the 
resistance of tiie great capital, and to 
give it the character of implacable fierce- 
ness which it gradually assumed, had 
taken place. Jules Favre had been 
selected for the difficult and delicate task 
of advancing to meet the victorious 
enemy, and soliciting from it such con- 
cessions as might render the lot of the 
conquered more tolerable. 

We heard M. Favre much criticised in 
those days, ami especially by those who 
were anxious to found upon the ruins of 
the government of which he was a mem- 
ber a tremendous insurrection, and a 
social revolution. At the close of the 
war, too. when hearts were still very 
sore, Jules Favre was condemned by 
many because lie had not been able to 
meet the triumphant Bismarck with that 
unruffled demeanor assumed by M. 
Ponyer-Quertier when that eminent finan- 
cier and economist came into contact 
with the Prussian Chancellor. Pouyer- 
Quertier, it was said, rather staggered 
the coolness of Bismarck : met him on his 
own ground, assumed the swagger that 
the great man affected when he was in 
France, and drank with him his atrocious 
mixtures of lemonade and white wine, 
keeping his head when other Frenchmen 
would have succumbed. 



Jules Favre approached the Prussians 
with the feeling that neither he nor his 
colleagues were iii any respect blame- 
worthy for (he declaration of the war, 
ami that the terrible condition in which 
the French nation now found itself 
was due solely to the incapacity of a 
regime which he and his followers had 
always condemned. He therefore neither 
felt the shame nor the revolt of pride 
by which an Imperial envoy would have 
been agitated under the circumstances ; 
lint he was a true patriot, and, as such, 
his heart was torn with grief which he 
could not conceal. The war, if the vic- 
torious Prussians now chose so to con- 
sider it, was at an end. The govern- 
ment which had declared hostilities was 
overthrown; the enemy had success- 
fully vanquished the most aggressive 
of the French forces, and virtually held 
a great part of the country at its mercy. 
To precipitate the horrors of the siege 
upon a population of two millions of 
persons, upon hundreds of thousands of 
helpless women and children, upon the 
vast numbers of people who lived from 
hand to mouth, and who could not be 
expected to have provision for the lone 
months of inaction during investment, 
was a responsibility which neither M. 
Favre nor his friends felt that they could 
incur without an effort to disengage 
themselves. 

So on Sunday, the 18th, Jules Favre 
set out in pursuit of Bismarck, lie had 



270 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

much difficulty in discovering that illus- Count Yon Bismarck stated his willing- 

trious diplomat. When once outside ness to receive M. Favre, and promised 

Paris, he was himself quite lost. Lord him safe conduct through the lines. But 

Lyons' courier bad stated in Paris that it was not until late in the afternoon that 

the German head-quarters was at Lagny, the two diplomats met. The uead-quar- 

and would be moved next day. Lord ters had been hastily moved from Meaux 

Lvons himself told M. Favre thai His- to the magnificent chateau of the Roths- 

marck was at Grosbois. M. Favre, there- childs, at Ferrieres ; and Count Ilatz- 

fore, made a pretext of a visit to the fort feldt, Bismarck's private secretary, was 

near the Charenton gate, and so had got sent to hunt up M. Favre, and tell him 

out of town without exciting the sus- of the change. 

picions of the jealous National Guards, " So we turned hack upon our steps." 
who were already beginning to assume a says M. Jules Favre in his '■ simple re- 
menacing attitude with regard to the cital" of the events of the war. "When 
newly constituted government. Pres- we reached the little village of Montry, 
ently M. Favre, accompanied by two or we were forced to stop there : our team 
three other officials and a French staff could lvo no farther. We found two 
officer, came to the last village occupied peasants wandering about the ruins of 
by the French troops. All the houses a farm, which, they told us. had been 
round about had been abandoned by pillaged three times, so that they had 
their inhabitants. nothing left. Everything, even to the 
A priest came from a church nearby sills of the windows, had been destroyed, 
to warn M. Favre that he would be made We sat down on a heap of rubbish, 
prisoner if lie went on ; but the little After waiting half an hour we saw three 
troop set forth across the deserted coun- cavaliers, followed by an enormous re- 
try, ami, after an hourV. march, they came hide, approaching. One of them, very 
to some German soldiers posted on either tall, had a while cap with a large rosette 
side of a long, tree-bordered alley. Here in yellow silk. This was Count Von 
the French officer had his eyes bandaged Bismarck. He dismounted at the gate 
by the enemy, and as soon as the soldiers of the farm, at which 1 stood to meet 
learned who M. Favre was and what he him. 

wanted, an escort took him and his "' I regret,' I said to him, ' that I can- 
companions to Villeneuve St. Georges, not receive Your Excellency in a place 
where, M. Favre tells us. he was ushered more worthy of him. Perhaps, how- 
into a deserted house, and a guard was ever, ruins are not entirely without some 
placed at his door, with orders under no relation to the conversation that 1 have 
circumstances to let him go out. Thai had the honor to ask for. They show 
evening M. Favre was the unwilling with eloquence the extent of the mis- 
guest of a German General, who did his fortunes to which I would like to put an 
best to be civil to the Republican envoy, end. We will, if Your Excellency will 
and, meantime, M. Favre indited a polite allow, fry to install ourselves here to 
note to Count Von Bismarck, who was begin our conversation.' 
then at Meaux. An officer set off post- "'No,' said Count Bismarck ;' there 
haste for Meaux with the message, and is probably a house in a better condition 
the officer came back at. six o'clock on somewhere in the neighborhood, and one 
the morning of the 19th. In his answer, that would be litter for our conference.' 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



271 



■• ; Yes.' said one of the peasants, 
• about ten minutes from here is the 
Chateau de la Haute Maison. I will 
show you the way there.' As they 
walked towards the chateau. Count Vou 
Bismarck said, 'This spot seems as if it 
were made for the exploits of your 
Francs-Tireurs. The neighborhood is 
infested with them, and wc hunt them 
down pitilessly. They are not soldiers, 
and we treat them like assassins.' 

'• • But,' said M. Fane, with anima- 
tion, ' they are Frenchmen, who are 
defending their country, their homes, 
and their hearth-stones. They rebel 
against your invasion ; they certainly 
have a right to do so. and you override 
the laws of war in refusing their applica- 
tion to these Francs-Tireurs.' 

" ' We can only recognize,' said Bis- 
marck, • soldiers who are under regular 
discipline : all the others are outlaws.' " 

M. Favre reminded him of the edicts 
published in Prussia in 1813, and the 
"Holy Crusade" preached against the 
French. " That is true," said Bismarck ; 
" and our trees have kept the marks of 
the ropes with which your generals hung 
our citizens upon them." 

When they reached the chateau they 
sat down in one of the rooms ; but Bis- 
marck was ill at east'. He said. " We 
are very poorly placed here. Your 
Francs-Tireurs might get good aim at, me 
through these windows, and," writes M. 
Favre, as I expressed my astonishment 
and my incredulity. '• I must lieu you," 
continued he, " to tell the people of this 
house that you are a member of the 
government, and that you order them to 
keep a strict watch, and that they must 
answer with their heads for any criminal 
attempt." 

After these little precautions, natural 
enough on the part of the Prussian 
Chancellor in an enemy's country, the 



two gentlemen proceeded to business. 
M. Favre briefly stated that his situation 
and that of his colleagues were perfectly 
clear. They had not overthrown the 
Emperor's government, lie had fallen 
by his own folly ; and though they came 
to [xiwer as his successors, they only did 
it in obedience to supreme necessity. 
" It is to the nation," said M. Favre, 
" that it belongs to decide upon the 
form of government that it wishes to 
live under, and on the conditions of 
peace. It is for that reason that we 
have called upon it for an expression of 
opinion; and I have come to ask you if 
you are willing that the nation should be 
interrogated, or if you are making war 
upon it with the intention of destroying 
it, or to impose a government upon it. 
In this case I must observe to Your 
Excellency that we have decided t<> de- 
fend ourselves to the death. Paris and 
her forts can resist for three months. 
Y'our country naturally suffers by the 
presence of her armies on our territory; 
a war of extermination would be fatal 
to both countries; and I think that by a 

little g 1-will we can prevent further 

disaster by an honorable peace." 

Count Vou Bismarck said that he 
asked for nothing but peace. Germany, 
for that matter, had not troubled peace. 
"•You," he said, •■declared war upon us 
without any motive, entirely for the pur- 
pose of taking a portion of our territory. 
In doing that, you had been faithful to 
your past. .Since Louis XIV. 's time, 
you had never ceased to aggrandize 
yourselves at our expense. We know 
that you will never give up this policy. 
Whenever you get your strength back 
you will make war upon us again. Ger- 
many has not sought this occasion, but 
has seized upon it for her security, anil 
that security can be guaranteed only by 
a cession of territory. Strasbourg is a 



272 EURorE j.v storm and calm. 

perpetual threat against us. It is the the Press, and the warlike enthusiasm 

key of our house, and we waul it." in the Corps Legislatif when the deela- 

M. Favre said: ration of war was made. 

•■ Then, ii is Alsace and Lorraine, M. Favre. having ventured rather 

Count Von Bismarck?" timidly to inquire whether the Prussians 

"I have said nothing about Lorraine; were aiming at a Bouapartist restoration, 
but, as to Alsatia, I will speak plainly: Bismarck spoke out impetuously : ••What 
we regard it as absolutely indispensable concern of ours is your form of govern- 
to our defence." incut ? It' WC thought Napoleon most 

M. Favre remarked that this sacrifice favorable to our interests we would bring 

would inspire in France sentiments of him back; but we leave von the choice 

vengeance and hatred, which would of your internal administration. What 

fatally bring about another war : -VI- we want is our own safety, and we can 

satia wished to remain French; that she never have it without we have tin* key 

might he conquered but could not be as- of the house. That condition is abso- 

sinhlated ; and that the province would lute; and I regret that nothing in it can 

he a source of embarrassment and, per- he changed." 
haps, of weakness to Germany. From this point the conversation took 

Bismarck said he did not deny a sharper turn. M. Favre continued to 

this; but he repeated that, whatever dwell upon the necessity of bringing the 

might happen, and even if France were war to a close, and preventing the enor- 

geuerously treated by the conqueror, she mous losses which both nations must suf- 

would still dream of war against Ger- fer if hostilities were prolonged. Bis- 

manv. She would not accept the capit- marck insisted that all this had been 

ulation of Sedan any more than that of foreseen by the Germans, ami that they 

Waterloo and of Sadowa. "All our preferred to suffer it rather than to have 

country is in mourning ; our industry is their children take up the task. "For 

suffering greatly; we have made enor- that matter," he said, "our position is 

mous sacrifices, and we do not mean to not so difficult as von seem to think it 

begin again to-morrow," he concluded. is; we can content ourselves with tak- 

M. Favre endeavored to modify the ing a fort, — and no one of them can hold 

harshness of Bismarck's opinions, asking out for more than four days, — and from 

him to bear in mind the great change in that fort we can dictate our terms to 

national manners since the begiuning of Paris." 

the centurv. and that wars were, by M. Favre cried out against the horrors 

modern science and bv the obligation of of the bombardment of a huge capital 

international interests, rendered more tilled with innocent and defenceless 

and more impossible; that France had people as well as with soldiers. " I do 

received a cruel lesson, bv which she not say," said Bismarck, "that we shall 

would profit all the more because she had make an assault on Paris. It will prob- 

lieen forced into this adventure against ably suit us better to starve it out, while 

her will. we move about in your provinces, where 

Count Von liisi vk objected to this, no army certainly can stop us. Stras- 

affirming that Fiance wanted the war home will fall on Friday, Toul, perhaps 

against Germany. He passed in review a little sooner: Marshal Bazaine his 

the old vindictive feeling, the attitude of eaten his mules; he has now begun on 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



273 



his horses, and pretty soon he will have 
to capitulate. After investing' Paris, 
we can cut off all its supplies with a 
cavalry eighty thousand strong ; and we 
have made up our minds to stay here as 
long as is necessary." 

M. Favrc continued to plead for the 
convocation of a French assembly with 
which the Germans could treat, and 
begged him, in the event of such a con- 
vocation to offer acceptable conditions 
and to make a solid peace. 

Bismarck answered that an armistice 
would he necessary to do all that, and 
he did not want one at any price. 

By this time it was quite dark, and 
the two gentlemen separated. Bis- 
marck, as he was taking leave of Jules 
Favre, said, " I am willing to recognize 
that you have always sustained the 
policy that you defend to-day. If I 
were sure that this policy were that of 
France, I would engage the King to 
retire without touching your territory 
or asking you for a penny ; and I 
am so familiar with his generous senti- 
ments that I could guarantee his ac- 
ceptance of such terms in advance. 
But you represent an imperceptihle 
minority. You spring out of a popular 
movement, which may upset you to- 
morrow. We have no guarantee, there- 
fore. We should not have any from 
the government which might take your 
place. The evil lies in the mercurial 
and unreflecting character of your coun- 
try. The remedy is in the material 
guarantee that, we have a right to take. 
You had no scruples about taking the 
hanks of the Rhine from us, although 
the Rhine is not your natural frontier. 
We take back from you what was ours, 
and we think that we shall thus assure 
peace." 

M. Favre, in giving an account of his 
mission to his colleagues, could not re- 



frain from indulging in a few personal 
impressions of Count Von Bismurck. 
''Although he was then," says the Re- 
publican Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
" in his fifty-eighth year, Bismarck ap- 
pealed to he in the full force of his 
talent. His lofty stature, his powerful 
head, his strongly marked features, gave 
him at once an imposing and a harsh 
aspect, which was nevertheless tem- 
pered by natural simplicity, amounting 
almost to good-nature. His greeting 
was courteous and grave, absolutely 
free from any affectation or stiffness. 
So soon as conversation was begun he 
assumed a benevolent and interrogative 
air, that he kept up the whole time. 
He certainly looked upon me as a 
negotiator unworthy of him; but he had 
the politeness not to manifest this senti- 
ment, and appeared interested by my 
sincerity. As for myself I was imme- 
diately struck by the clearness of his 
ideas, the rigidity of his good sense, 
and the originality of his mind. The 
absence of all pretence in him was not 
the least remarkable. I judged him to 
be a politician, far superior to all that 
had been thought of him, taking into 
account only what was, preoccupied 
with positive and practical solutions, 
indifferent to all which did not lead up 
to a useful end. Since that time 
I have seen much of him, we have 
treated many questions of detail to- 
gether, and I have always found him 
the same. . . . He is fully con- 
vinced of his own personal value. He 
wishes to give himself entirely to the 
work in which he has had such prodig- 
ious success, and if, in order to cany it 
on, he must go further than he would 
like, or not so far as he could wish, he 
would resign himself to the situation. 
Nervous and impressionable, he is al- 
ways master of his subject. I have 



274 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



often heard reports of his excessive 
sharpness ; but lie never deceived me. 
He has often wounded me. I have 
revolted against his exactions and his 
harshness ; but, in great as in little 
things, 1 have always recognized him 
as straightforward and punctual." 

The interview was resumed at Fer- 
rieres, in the evening. "I was re- 
ceived," said M. Favre, " in a great 
parlor on the ground floor, called the 
Salle de Chasse. The Prussian field- 
post was already established there. 
The registries, stamps, the letter-boxes 
were all arranged with the same pre- 
cision as in Berlin. Everything went 
on without noise, without confusion; 
each one had his place. Bismarck was 
still at table. lie came down to ask 
me to partake of his repast, which I 
declined. .Shortly afterwards we be- 
gan to converse together." 

Among Bismarck's remarks that even- 
ing many were very noteworthy. He 
seemed to attach great importance to the 
violence of the French press, the offen- 
sive caricatures and railleries of Ger- 
many, and to draw from them the 
conclusion that the nation was persist- 
ently hostile, and could not lie corrected 
in its sentiments. After a time, M. 
Favre, speaking with extreme frankness, 
accused the Chancellor of being the 
instrument of the Imperial party, which 
he had the design of imposing anew 
upon the French nation. 

" You are entirely mistaken," said 
Bismarck. " I have no serious reason for 
liking Napoleon III. I do not say that 
it would not have been handy for me to 
have kepi him in his place, and you have 
done a had turn to your country by upset- 
ting him. It would certainly have been 
possible for us to treat with him ; but, 
personally, I have never been able to say 
much good of him. If he had wished it 



we might have been two sincere allies ; 
and we could have handled Europe at 
our will. He tried to deceive everybody : 
so I trusted in him no longer ; but I did 
not wish to light him. I proved it in 
1867, at the time of the Luxembourg 
affair. All the King's party clamored for 
war. I alone repelled the notion. I 
even offered my resignation ; gravely 
injured my credit. I only mention these 
things to prove to you that the war was 
not my making. I would certainly never 
have undertaken it, if it had not been 
declared against us." 

Then he gave M. Favre a picturesque 
account of the negotiations, in which M. 
Benedetti played so disastrous a part, 
called the Duke of Gramont "a mediocre 
diplomat," said that Kinile ( (llivier was 
an •• orator and not a statesman ; " finally, 
lie added that if the Germans had any 
interest in maintaining the Napoleonic 
dynasty they would put it back at once ; 
the same for the Orleans family; the 
same for M. De Chambord, who would 
be much more to their taste. "As for 
myself," said the Chancellor, " I am en- 
tirely out of the question. I am even a 
Republican, and 1 hold that there is no 
good government if it does not come 
directly from the people, only each peo- 
ple must shape itself to its necessity, 
and to the national manners." 

The question of an armistice was again 
raised that evening ; but no further prog- 
ress was made than this, that Bis- 
marck would consult the King, ami that 
he personally wanted a guarantee for -he 
neutrality of Paris during an armistice 
in which an assembly should lie invoked. 

The next day, at eleven o'clock, M. 
Favre anxiously waited the result of 
Bismarck's interview with the King. 

" At half-past eleven." says M. 
Favre, " he sent me word that he was at 
liberty. 1 found him seated at a desk, 



EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 



275 



in a large and magnificent parlor on the 
first floor of the chdteau. He came for- 
ward to meet me, and, leading me up to 
his desk, showed me the Journal pour 
Mire and another paper, which had not 
been placed there without a motive. 

" ' Here,' he said, ' look at the proof 
of your pacific and moderate inten- 
tions !' " and he showed M. Favrc 
numerous caricatures representing 
Prussia in the most hateful shapes. 
After he had dwelt on this long 
enough to rouse M. Favre's temper, 
the latter said that lie wished to 
come to the point at once. " You 
have spoken with the King ; I 
would like to know the result of 
your conversation." 

" The King," said Bismarck, 
"accepts an armistice under the 
conditions and with tiie object that 
we have agreed upon. As I have 
already told you we ask for the 
occupation of all the fortresses 
besieged in the Vosges, that of 
Strasbourg, and the garrison of 
that place as prisoners of war." 
This led to an animated discussion, 
which, at two or three points, was 
in danger of being interrupted by 
violence of feeling. On each of 
these occasions Bismarck would 
say, " Let us try a new combina- 
tion ; let us look for a combination." 

M. Favre told him that the people of 
France would never consent to the sur- 
render of the troops in the garrison of 
Strasbourg, in view of the heroic defense 
which they were then making. "It 
would be cowardly," he said. 

Bismarck declared his willingness to 
talk over the matter again with the King, 
and went to do so. "While the Chancellor 
was gone, M. Favre sat at a table and 
wrote out the substance of the conditions 
of an armistice as he had understood 



Bismarck to lay them down. In a short 
time the Count returned, also with a 
written statement, and they compared 
notes. 

M. Favre had set down as a guarantee 
given by Paris of her continued neutral- 
ity during the armistice these words : 
"A fort in the neighborhood of Paris." 




^f " 



BISMARCK (Military). 1870. 

"That is not it at all," said Bismarck, 
quickly. " I did not say a fort ; I might 
ask you for a number of forts. 1 want 
particularly one that controls the town, 
— Mont Valerieu, for instance." 

M. Favre made no answer. Bismarck 
continued: "The King accepts the com- 
bination of a meeting of the Assembly 
at Tours, for instance ; but he insists 
that the garrison of Strasbourg shall be 
given upas prisoners of war." 

At this point, by his own confession, 



27G 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



M. Favrc's courage broke down. He 
rose, and turned away his bead, that the 
enemy might not: ee his tears. " But," lie 
says, '• it was (lie affair of a second; 
and, recovering my calm, I said, ' For- 
give me, Count, this moment of weak- 
ness. I am ashamed to have let you 
witness it ; but my sufferings are such 
that I am excusable for having yielded. 
I must now beg permission to retire. I 
have made a mistake in coming here, but 




BISMARCK (Civilian). 1884. 

I am not sorry. I obeyed a sentiment 
of duty, and nothing less than imperious 
necessity could have made me suffer the 
tortures imposed upon me. I shall 
faithfully report to the government all 
the details of our conversation. Person- 
ally I thank you for the kindness with 
which you have received it, and I shall 
remember it. If my government esteems 
that there is anything to do in the inter- 
est of peace, witli the conditions you 
have laid down, I shall overcome my re- 



pulsion, and lie hero to-morrow; in the 
contrary eas \ I shall have the honor to 
write you. I am very unhappy, hut full 
of hope.' " 

Bismarck himself appeared some- 
what agitated. He extended his hand 
to Favrc, addressed him a few polite 
words, and M. Favrc turned his hack 
upon the enemy. 

He reached Paris just in time to hear 
the excited comments of his colleagues 
upon the shameful retreat of the 
French troops from Chatillon. 

But the decision that Bismarck's 
terms were too harsh, and could 
not lie accepted, was unanimous; 
ami next day the Prussian Chan- 
cellor received a note, stating this 
fact. 

On the evening of the 20th of 
September, the famous proclama- 
tion, in which the government of 
National Defense declared that it 
would yield to the enemy " neither 
an inch of French territory nor 
a stone of French fortresses," was 
posted on the walls of Paris; and 
on the 21st of September Gam- 
betta, as Minister of the Interior, 
issued an address in which he 
reminded the people •• That sev- 
enty-eight years before, on that 
day, their fathers had founded the 
Republic, and had taken a solemn oath, 
in the presence of the invader, to live 
free or to die in combat. They kept 
their oath ; they conquered, and the 
Republic of 1793 has remained in the 
memory of men a symbol of heroism and 
national grandeur. The government 
installed at the Hotel de Ville, amid the 
enthusiastic, cries of Vive la Republique, 
could not let this glorious anniversary 
pass without saluting it as a great ex- 
ample." 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 277 

So wrote Gambetta, who was so soon Paris suffered siege. Within the walla 

afterwards to limit' italic his mission of and without a constant succession ot 

organizing the national defence in that tragic and romantic events occurred. 

part of the country as yet free from Let us now pass the most important of 

Hit' invader. them in review. 

For four months thereafter the city of 



278 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. 

The Army of Strasbourg. — General Uliricb ami the Fortress which lie had to defend. — The Forts. — The 
Cathedral. — Fire and Bombardment. — The Tyranny of the Mob — Immense Destruction. — Loss of 
one of the most Valuable Libraries in the World. — German Siege Tactics. — The spectacle after the 
Surrender. 



WE have already seen that Jules 
Favre, in his report made to his 
colleagues of the government of National 
Defence, after his visit to Count Bismarck 
at Ferrieres, spoke of the Chancellor as 
very stern in all his remarks about Stras- 
bourg. " It is the key of the house," said 
Bismarck, " and I must have it." Jules 
Favre was not slow to perceive that Bis- 
marck meant by this that Strasbourg was 
to he comprised in the new Germany 
which he was carving out, with so much 
Labor and at sucdi an expense lit' Mood 
and treasure. Time and time again, as the 
pitiless German laid down his conditions 
for the armistice which the French felt. 
was necessary to their cause, the occu- 
pation of Strasbourg, of Totil, and of 
Phalsbourg was insisted upon in the 
sharpest terms. Once M. Favre lost 
patience, and said, " It is much more 
simple to ask us for Paris ; " but Bis- 
marck, speaking of Strasbourg, said, "the 
town is sure to fall into our hands. 
It is no longer anything but a matter of 
calculations." 

I went down from Frankfort to Stras- 
bourg in September, when the German 
bombardment had been in progress ful- 
some twenty days, and was no little 
surprised to find that I was only one of 
thousands of pilgrims. The inhabitants 
of Baden, Wurtemburg, and the sections 
in the neighborhood of the Rhine, looked 
on with grim delight tit the steadily prose- 
cuted operations for the recovery of the 



city, which they regarded as belonging 
to Germany. Day after day the little 
German papers published extravagant 
announcements of the coming assault 
upon Strasbourg, — an assault which 
never came. At Appenweier, where 
the railway branches off to Kehl and 
Strasbourg, I found the transportation 
of troops to and from the front in rapid 
progress, and the delays for civilians 
were interminable. 

To travel through the lovely land in 
the peaceful September did not remind 
one much of war-time. The dark high- 
hinds of tin' Schwartzwald loomed up 
peacefully to the left; and on the right, 
in the broad, fruitful valley of the 
Rhine, few soldiers were to lie seen. 
At Rastadt there was a solitary senti- 
nel ; but on tile broad plain before 
the town an immense number of earth- 
works showed what tremendous prepa- 
ration had been made for the French, 
whose first entry into Germany was 
expected to be upon this vale, so often 
devastated in past times by French 
armies. 

The people of Baden were so delighted 
at being relieved from the threatened 
invasion (for during the days following 
the battles of Weissenburg, Saarbn'icken, 
and Woerth they were in mortal terror) 
that they emptied cellar and kitchen in 
order to firing the passing troops refresh- 
ments and to cheer them on to the fight. 
What the French might have done in 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



279 



Baden if they had been better prepared, 
it was easy to see ; but they contented 
themselves with cutting the bridge over 
the Rhine and waiting the onslaught of 
their enemies. 

A little rough riding in a peasant's 
wagon was necessary iu order to get to 
Auerheim, whence the best view of 
" Strasbourg iu flames," as the Baden ers 
called it, was to be had. The journey 
occupied about two hours, across a well- 
cultivated country ; and, although it was 
quite late, the villagers came out from 
all the sleepy little dorfs to stare at the 
strangers who had come to see the bom- 
bardment. The scene was, indeed, worth 
a rough day's ride on the railway and 
the fatigue. At nightfall the whole sky 
above (Strasbourg was illuminated by 
fires raging in one of the poorer 
quarters. It was a fearful sight to see, 
though the peasant driver said that a 
few evenings previous no less than half- 
a-dozen quarters had been blazing. The 
flames had been seen for over twenty 
miles. He also said that in Auerheim 
the screams and the lamentations of the 
inhabitants of Strasbourg were often 
heard. This sounded somewhat apocry- 
phal, but he insisted upon the truth of 
it, gesticulating with his long porce- 
lain pipe as he pointed to the great 
tower of the cathedral, which loomed up 
vast and dim against the lurid back- 
ground. Now and then a blaze of more 
than ordinary intensity was seen, denot- 
ing the fall of some building, and this 
would be followed by a momentary 
gloom. The regular booming of the 
cannon was faintly heard. 

About ten at night we drove forward 
to the entrance of the little village of 
Auerheim, where there was a picket sta- 
tioned. This picket halted the driver, 
but was easily pacified by cigars and 
small coins. The only hotel in the 



village was occupied by officers, and 
the police had kindly issued orders 
that no strangers should be allowed to 
remain there over night ; so, had it not 
been for the kindness of a neighbor, we 
should not have been able to secure our 
sixth of the one sleeping-room, with 
quarters on some doubtful straw. All 
night the village streets resounded with 
the hum of the voices of the peasants 
and strangers, who were coming and 
going on their excursions to the best 
points for seeing the conflagration. The 
following morning broke 1 night and 
fresh as spring, and I engaged my host 
to lead me as near as possible to the 
German batteries at Kehl. The little, 
river Kinsig flows hard by, and from its 
high banks a good view of a portion of 
Strasbourg and of Kehl is obtained. 
The highest spire of the cathedral, four 
miles distant, was superbly illuminated 
by the glow of the morning sun. I had 
been told in Frankfort that it had been 
destroyed; and, indeed, the German 
officers confessed to me that it had been 
fired upon from Kehl, but only because 
the commandant of the city had persisted 
in making the platform at the foot of 
the single tower the place for an observa- 
tory. So accurately had the shot been 
sent that it had passed over the platform 
without damaging the tower. l ' This 
was," said my informant, " the only 
time the sacred edifice had been fired 
upon ; and this was a case of necessity, 
since by this means the French com- 
mandant might have held communication 
with the mountains in the rear of the 
city, and overseen the entire movements 
made by the forces in Baden and AI- 
satia. The platform is two hundred 
and twenty-eight feet above the ground, 
commanding every part of the city and 
fortifications, aud the mountain passes 
of the Black Forest and the Vosges." 



280 EUROPE IX STORM AM> CALM. 

The famous tower of the Strasbourg watcher on the banks of the Rhine. 

Cathedral reaches a height of four hun- Vauban secured the possession of Alsatia 

dred and eight} - -six feet above the pave- to France by laying cut a number of 

incut, ami is, next to the Pyramid of fortified places, furts, and citadels: in 

Cheops, the highest edifice in the world, flic south, against Switzerland, Ilun- 

The German guns were busy, although ningen, which was rased in 1815 ; in the 
it was scarcely dawn, and were pounding north, Weissenburg, and the so-called 
away at the citadel, which lay nearer t<> Weissen line; and the centre of the 
them than tiic church ; hut the peasants whole system of fortifications was Stras- 
were at work in their fields, or engaged bourg. The chief disadvantage of the 
with the hemp in tin 1 standing waters, city as a military fort was the fact that 
ami sentinels, with a business-like air, it was on a plain. The German military 
warned the visitors not to enter within authorities say that, had it been placed 
the line of lire. Kehl was lint a few about fifty kilometres further back, 
hundred yards to our left . and the firing somewhere in the neighborhood of Sa- 
from the batteries there could he easily verne, the declivities of the Vosges would 
followed, the sound of the explosion of have been a protection, and would have 
shells falling in the streets being dis- naturally given it a dominant position. 
tinctly heard, although we could not The only means of getting a wide view 
observe their effect, because of the Long from the town is by climbing the minster 
rows of poplar trees. Across the Rhine tower. The town's only advantage is 
the Prussian batteries in Schiltigheim, that it has an entire command of the 
Ruprechtsau, and Bischheim kept up a Rhine, though distant about seven and 
monotonous refrain. The officer with one-half miles, and situated on the 111, 
whom 1 was in conversation said that one of the tributaries of thatriver. The 
nearly live hundred cannon and mortars Rhine is here divided into three arms, 
were in position, although at that mo- and Strasbourg itself is built upon an 
incut the firing was very slack. Fifty island formed by them. A canal con- 
thousand Baden and Prussian troops nects the city with the Rhine, and, by 
were constantly under arms, waiting for obstructing the former, water is sent 
a breach to be made in the walls. They into the ditches of tin' fortress, thus 
seemed to have little confidence in Gen- making the city more capable of defense, 
oral Ullrich's defiant statement that he The fortification system was generally 
would hold the town so long as a soldier thought to he excellent, especially the 
and a biscuit were left. fortified enceinte and citadel. Towards 

Strasbourg had at the time of the the Vosges there was a strong line of 
bombardment a population of over eighty defence, with two projecting bastions 
thousand souls, half of whom were Plot- and two forts at the ends; in the north, 
estants, and was justly considered the Fort, Pierre, and in the south. Fort 
most important fortress in Alsatia. secur- Blanc. This part of the fortress was 
ing the hitter's possession ; and, in the only entered by the railway and by the 
hands of the French, being the base of Saverne gate, the latter being well pro- 
operation-, for the campaign in Baden teeted. The two side lines of the city, 
and the Palatinate. It was the farther- which is almost triangular in shape, w ere 
most outpost in France towards the Fast, about equally protected. The southern 
the protectoress of Alsatia, and the one, from Fort Plane as far as the cita- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



281 



del, was provided with natural protec- 
tions. The ramparts were built on a 
level, cut by the 111 and the ditches, the 
entrance into the fortress being through 
the Hospital and the Austerlitz Gates. 
Behind the ramparts lay the forage 
magazines, the military prison, and the 
Austerlitz Barracks. The northern side, 
from Fort Pierre to the citadel, com- 
manded the two suburbs of Robertsau 
and Les Contades, and a small island. 

The citadel, built by Vauban in 1682- 
8.3, was separated by an esplanade from 
the city, and could contain defensive 
material for a number of months. But, 
as we have already seen, it was too 
poorly equipped with arms, artillery, etc. 
It was pentagonal in shape, provided 
with five bastions ; had barracks for 
ten thousand men and fifteen hundred 
horses ; and at the beginning of the siege 
is said to have had within its walls about 
four thousand National Guards, two thou- 
sand < i aiiles Mobiles, two thousand artil- 
lery, fifteen hundred men from regiments 
of the line, a great number of mules and 
Arab horses, which had been collected 
with the view of an expedition into Ger- 
many ; and. upon its walls, had some 
three or four hundred rather antiquated 
cannon. 

When the army of MacMahon had been 
defeated in the two battles of Weissen- 
bnrg and Woerth, the commandant of 
Strasbourg was requested by Lieutenant- 
General Von Werder to capitulate. In 
truth a less brave man than General 
Uhrich might have hesitated to under- 
take the defence of a city which had for 
its garrison only the rabble of retreat- 
ing liners, chasseurs-b-pied, artillery-men, 
and Tnrcos, who had been routed in the 
terrible night after Woerth, and had fled 
to the nearest fortress. The summons 
to surrender was issued on the 8th day 
of August. The reports of MacMahon's 



defeat were sent to the commandant of 
Strasbourg, in the hope that he might be 
influenced to yield the town. But he 
had received the most encouraging prom- 
ises of immediate aid from Talis, and to 
all the threats of bombardment and 
assault responded by a cool and contin- 
uous negative. General Von Werder 
at once began the bombardment. The 
town was invested upon the 12th of 
August ; and for nearly forty da\ s there- 
after a rain of shell and shot from the 
iron throats of more than live hundred 
cannon fell upon the terror-stricken in- 
habitants. Commandant Uhrich sent 
word to the German commander that he 
felt called upon, as an act of reprisal for 
the bombardment of the city, of which 
he had not been notified, to direct his 
guns upon the little town of Kehl, which 
contains about two thousand inhabitants, 
most of the houses being small peasants' 
cottages. The Germans had one battery 
at a short distance to the left of this 
village, which was otherwise totally un- 
fortified. In the little church were a 
number of wounded. From the roof the 
flag of the sanitary corps was floating. 

The Germans were unanimous in say- 
ing that on this building the first shots 
of the French guns were directed, and 
that in a short time the church was set 
on fire. Had it not been for the heroism 
of the local farmers the wounded sol- 
diers would have been burned alive. All 
the inhabitants of the village lied, leav- 
ing their houses and property unpro- 
tected. Many houses were blown to 
pieces by shells, ami the public buildings 
were completely wrecked. 

General Yon Werder then sent a pro- 
tect to the commander of Strasbourg, 
saving that his guns, in violation of the 
law of nations, had beeu directed against 
the unfortified and open town of Kehl 
without previous intimation. Such a 



282 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



method of making war, he continued, was 
unheard of amongst civilized nations, 
and must induce him to make General 
Uhrich personally responsible for the con- 
sequences of the act. Apart from this 
he should cause the damage done to be 
assessed, and should seek compensation 
for it by means of contributions levied 
in Alsatia. This note was issued on the 
19th of August, and greatly embittered 
the feeling on both sides. The damage 
done in Kehl was, in fact, assessed, and 
a report was sent in to the German gov- 
ernment. The Germans had not, up to 
this date, made preparations for a long or 
serious siege, since large forces were at 
their < onnnand ; and the army of defense 
opposing them consisted, as they knew, 
of hut ten thousand men. The Stras- 
bourgers had been wise enough to call in 
immense quantities of provisions from 
the neighborhood before the investment 
was complete; but they found them- 
selves embarrassed by the presence of 
thousands of villagers and mountaineers 
who flocked in. It was estimated that 
in three days before the 19th of August 
twenty thousand villagers came in for 
protection. General Uhrich found him- 
self with a hundred thousand people 
under his protection, and with an over- 
whelming force of besiegers, assembled 
before his town. 

On the night of the 18th and 19th of 
August heavy cannonading was kept up 
on both sides, and immense damage was 
done to the city of Strasbourg. The 
guns threw into the fortress a perfect 
hail-storm of bombs and cannon-balls. 
On the evening of the 19th the fortifi- 
cation caught lire iii many places ; but 
the Strasbourg garrison worked well, 
the guns being valiantly manned and 
directed by artillery-men who had served 
their time in the French army. On the 
20th a powerful siege train arrived from 



Northern Germany, and the city was 
placed under lire on all sides. 

Thenceforward, from the date of my 
visit until the surrender, the condition 
of the town, the garrison, and the inhabi- 
tants was frightful. The soldiers were 
no longer subordinate, and the better 
class of citizens, seeing a threatened 
danger, pleaded that their city might be 
spared ; but the mob ruled everywhere 
outside the fortress. The commandant 
began to take measures for the expulsion 
of the Germans, who formed a part of 
the population; and, on the morning of 
the 21st, one hundred Germans, who 
hail been serving in the Algerian Foreign 
Legion, were ordered to leave the city. 
The gates were opened, and ten were 
s< nt out at each gate, so say the German 
accounts, with the threat that if they 
looked back they would at mire be shot 
down. These unfortunate men were 
placed in an insecure position. They 
found themselves between two tires: 
being dressed in their French uniforms 
they were marks for the Germans, ami 
if they attempted to regain the French 
lines they were sure of being shot. 
Most of them saved their lives by run- 
ning straight into the German lines. 
Two of them were natives of Pomerania, 
and, oddly enough, fell into the hands 
of a Pomeranian regiment. The children 
in the streets pointed out the Germans 
who did not speak the dialect; and all 
these were arrested as suspected of pos- 
sible collusion with the enemy. Among 
the persons thus arrested were many 
Pomeranian brewers, — men who were 
taken oil' their wagons and sent immedi- 
ately to prison. Men sent out by the 
Charitable Society of Lausanne, in Switz- 
erland, were arrested as spies, and 
imprisoned. A young German officer, 
who was captured by some French 
pickets, and escorted into the city, was 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



283 



literally torn to pieces by the excited 
mob. His head was cut off and stuck 
upon a pole, and carried in triumph, the 
mob following, shouting, singing, and 
cursing the besiegers. 

It was a fearful time for the peace- 
ably inclined citizens, who desired any- 
thing rather than the unchecked license 
of their own mob. The stories of the 
cruel treatment of German prisoners 
reached the besiegers' lines, and hun- 
dreds of shells were thrown into the popu- 
lous quarters, where they were expected 
to reach and punish the rioters. 

On the 22d of August the Germans re- 
ceived reinforcements from Rastadt, and 
more heavy guns came also from Cologne 
and from Ulm. Commander Ullrich was 
informed that a breach would be shortly 
made in the walls, and the city stormed ; 
that an assault would be postponed as long 
as possible, since the German victories 
elsewhere must show the uselessness of 
longer obstinacy, and King William had 
ordered that the commander of the be- 
sieging forces should spare his men as 
much as possible, and sin mid do the city 
and its inhabitants the least amount of 
injury consistent with coercion. It was 
at this time that the Germans noticed 
the splendid point of observation which 
Commander Uhrich had on the cathe- 
dral ; so he was informed that, if he did 
not at once clear his instruments away 
from the church, the grand old edifice 
would be bombarded, despite its sacred 
character. On this day General Uhrich 
asked that the women and children 
might be allowed to pass out ; but, as 
the German commander desired to exer- 
cise moral pressure upon the garrison, 
he refused to allow this. He permitted 
General Uhrich to send a letter to his 
wife. A great number of Germans were 
at this period expelled from the city. 
The 24th of August was an anxious day 



for the little group of besieged, for, on 
the morning of the 24th, no less than 
live hundred cannon outside were manned, 
and fifty thousand troops awaited the 
signal for assault. The Germans, with 
singular, although perhaps with uncon- 
scious, insolence, asked General Uhrich 
to come out, or send one of his officers, 
to see the preparations which had been 
made for the bombardment. This he 
refused to do, saying that it was never 
possible for him to inspect the German 
forces until those forces had capitulated. 
He added that he was determined to de- 
fend himself to the last man and the last 
cannon-ball. 

During the whole of the 24th a, terrific 
cannon duel was kept up, and at five 
o'clock on the following morning the 
firing ceased, from pure exhaustion on 
both sides. The right side of the cita- 
del of Strasbourg was almost entirely 
destroyed, and half-a-dozen fires were 
burning in various quarters. The next 
night the Germans sent ten or fifteen 
shells per minute into the city. All 
night the sky was lighted by the 
flames of burning Kehl, Robertsau, 
Schiltgheim, and Konigenhof, which had 
been fired by the French, and at mid- 
night the moon was obscured by the 
smoke above the burning city of Stras- 
bourg. The peasants of the surrounding 
villages assembled in thousands to watch 
the flames and to listen to the cannon- 
ading. The fires were seen, nearly forty 
miles away, by the inhabitants of the 
Black Forest. The whole of the Stein- 
strasse, the Blau-Wolkenstrasse, and 
the new church of St. Peter were in 
Barnes. From time to time it looked at 
if the old church were burning, the 
tower seeming to be glowing red, aud 
the flames appearing to run along it as 
if sporting with the sacred building. 
The soldiers of Kehl could read ordinary 



284 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 

print at :i distanca of four miles from jured by shells. The IIAtel de Ville is 

binning Strasbourg. The wind blew shattered ; the Council Hall isdevastated ; 

westward, carrying the flames into the many private residences have become the 

most populous quarters. Firemen and prey of the flames. Shells last night fell 

citizens worked desperately to stay by dozens and by hundreds in :i single 

the progress of the flames; while the street; and as soon as a fire was lighted 

mob, completely beyond control, ran up projectiles were poured like hail upon 

through the streets, robbing and plunder- the spot, no doubt for the purpose of 

ing the unprotected, and breaking into preventing the workers from getting the 

deserted houses. flames under. The whole city is heaped 

This night of the 24th of August made with wreck, and the roofs, chimneys, and 

a profound impression upon the besieged facades of the houses are damaged on 

inhabitants. The leading local news- all sides." 

paper, in its issue of the 25th, contains Even this pathetic description fails to 
the following :•• What ruin ami mourning ! give an idea of the reality during the 
At eight o'clock las; night the enemy dreadlul night. The citizens fled into 
began a terrific lire, destroying fortunes, their cellars, many into the very sewers, 
treasures, and grand works of art. What in order to save themselves from the 
losses shall we mention first? The Pub- shells. Thousands, however, had no 
lie Library, the Temple Neuf, the Mu- such place of refuge. They ran about 
seumof Painting? Most splendid houses, the streets hall' crazy. 
in the liue^t quarter, are now only heaps During the night the heroic little gar- 
of blackened ruins. The Public Library, rison made a sally, which was repelled 
so famous throughout Europe, contained by the Germans with great loss to the 
books and manuscript, the most unique in French. In the morning the command- 
the world, the result of centuries of labor, ant sent a parl&mentaire to ask for lint 
patience, and perseverance. Nothing and bandages for the wounded, since he 
now remains but a few parchments, had none; and he added that from five 
The site is covered with ruins, and all to six hundred citizens had been wounded 
that we can find is the carbonized cover by exploding shells, and by the beams 
of one or two books in a corner. Of the from falling houses. .Many lay buried 
Church of the New Temple, which was beneath the ruins, where they must 
the largest Protestant place of worship remain, as there was no time to rescue 
in Strasbourg, with its splendid organ them. A shell fell into a girls' school, 
and renowned mural paintings, the four killing seven girls, and severely wound- 
walls alone remain. The Art Museum ing many others. Still the commandant 
at Annette is entirely destroyed. The would not listen to the word capitulation, 
Cathedral has hitherto only escaped by but demanded to be allowed to leave the 
miracle. This morning, again, some fortress with all military honors. The 
fragments of sculpture and stone from citizens sent the burgomaster to the cita- 
the walls were found scattered about the del to plead with General Uhrieh, but 
ground, showing that a cannon-ball had the General sent him back again with the 
struck our magnificent Monument, — one intimation that he would shoot any citi- 
of the glories of the world. The Notre zen who attempted to resist his au- 
Dame Asylum, one of the noblest monu- thority. 
ments of the middle ages, has been in- On the 26th of August the inhab- 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



285 



itants of the city sent the Bishop of 
Strasbourg to plead with the German 
commander. The bishop entered a 
little village where lie was met by 
the chief of the Prussian staff. The 
good bishop first expressed his con- 
viction that the bombardment of the 
city was not justified by the military 
code, ami begged that it should be 
brought to a speedy termination. The 
chief of the Prussian staff replied that 
if France had ever entertained the in- 
tention of uniting to the defense of the 
city the greatest possible care for its 
safety and that of its inhabitants, she 
would have built the fortifications so 
that the great points of defense would 
have been concentrated in the outer 
works. The old method of laying out 
the defence placed great difficulties in 
the way of storming, which could only 
lie removed by simultaneously firing 
upon the city. He added that, in order 
to give the Imperial French prints some- 
thing to say, the little undefended town 
of Saaibriieken had been bombarded. 
The bishop, discovering that there was 
not much hope of an agreemi nt with 
the obstinate German, timidly requested 
that all the civilian inhabitants of the 
city might be permitted to leave it. 
Put this was sternly refused. Finally 
the bishop requested the cessation of 
hostilities for twenty-four hours. The 
chief of the Prussian staff answered 
that this could lie granted only on the 
assurance that General Ullrich would 
enter into negotiations ; whereupon the 
bishop and the chief parted in a friendly 
manner. Put, according to the German 
accounts, a moment later a platoon fire 
was opened upon the chief of the Prus- 
sian staff, although he held in his hand 
the parliamentary flag, which he brought 
back into the lines literally pierced 
through and through with bullets. On 



his return to the lines the Gen lan 
batteries at once opened lire upon the 
fortifications and the city as a retalia- 
tion of what they considered a very 
grave breach of military law. 

And in the midst of such horrors 
the month was slowly wearing away. 
General Uhrich was, indeed, made of 
heroic stuff, for the bravest heart must 
have faltered now and then as it saw 
that all the promises of help from Paris 
were in vain, and that in front was a 
constantly increasing inimical force, — a 
■whole nation, to take back what it con- 
sidered its own, and pitiless because 
of the memories of past defeats and 
humiliations, which had been inflicted 
upon it by the enemy now in its power. 

The very elements seemed to be 
against the unhappy citizens of Stras- 
bourg. Thunder-storms roared and 
poured daily over the doomed city ; and 
the wretched people who had been living 
in cellars were driven out of them by tin' 
rising of the Rhine. Hundreds fled t<> 
the cathedral, and took refuge within its 
massive walls. A Strasbourg lady, who 
fled to Pasle with her two children after 
the night of the 24th, described the citi- 
zens as without courage and livid with 
fear. Every night was a prolonged 
terror, and few of the inhabitants slept 
during the night hours. The German 
fire was generally strongest from one in 
the morning until I'wv or six. 

On the 29th a tremendous sally was 
made by the Strasbourg garrison, but 
it did nothing save inflict a little dam- 
age on the German troops, who were 
employed iii making trenches. Still 
the bells in the city were rung, as if in 
celebration of a victory. But they were 
funeral bells, and General Uhrich must 
have begun to foresee the end. On the 
night after this courageous sortie the 
first parallel was opened by the Germans, 



286 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and nineteen batteries were placed in 
position. Another sally made by the 
French, to take an advance battery, 
proved unsuccessful. 

On the 30th of August the bishop 
again appeared in the German lines, and 
said that he was willing to undertake 
negotiations with General Uhrich. The 
Germans gave the bishop the English 
and Belgian newspapers to read, which 
contained accounts of the German victo- 
ries around Metz ; and then had him es- 
corted hack to the town. That night all 
the German batteries increased their fire. 
But Strasbourg was silent, and remained 
s<> fur three days thereafter, as ils am- 
munition was almost gone. 

At this time within the walls of Stras- 
bourg potatoes were sold at 24 francs 
per hundred pounds; peas, at 14 sous 
per pound, and the only meat to lie had 
was horseflesh, sold at b francs per 
pound. 

The hist and crowning misfortune of 
General Uhrich was the cutting off of 
his direct telegraphic communication 
with Paris. This was accidentally ac- 
complished by a niincr in one of the Ger- 
man trenches, who cut the subterranean 
wire with his pickaxe. 

On the .".1st of August the energetic 
deputy, Keller, was haranguing the < 'orps 
Legislatif in Paris, and declaring that a 
commission should be sent into the de- 
partment of the Upper Rhine to arouse 
the populations to a man. But no help 
came to the valiant Uhrich and his starv- 
ing men. " I will," he said, shutting his 
teeth hard, and glaring at the messenger 
whom the bishop had sent to him — •• I 
will hold the place to the last stone. If 
I must withdraw into the forts I will 
blow up the city if it hinders my de- 
fense." 

The leading Strasbourg paper, on the 
2d of September, published a tremendous 



despatch, announcing a great French 
victory, in which both Steinmetz and 
Prince Friederieh had been taken prison- 
ers, and the Crown Prince was severely 
wounded. A second report announced 
a victory at Toul, in which forty-nine 
thousand Germans had been killed, 
thirty-live thousand wounded, and seven 
hundred cannon taken. Marshal Mac- 
Mahon was said to be at Chalons, with 
four hundred thousand men, and Alsatia 
was to be saved in two days. The 
French soldiers, said the despatch, are 
making ramparts of the Prussian dead. 

It was on the day following this imag- 
inary comfort, in which the poor people 
of Strasbourg indulged themselves, that 
the fall of Sedan was announced in 
Germany ; but the people of Strasbourg 
knew nothing of this event until several 
days afterwards. The German besiegers 
had celebrated the victory by tiring off 
twenty-one guns. The editor of the 
Strasbourg paper wrote: "Yesterday 
the enemy's batteries fired many shells 
into the city at regular intervals. Our 
batteries made a vigorous reply. After 
the twenty-first shell was tired the Prus- 
sian guns wcif silenced." 

On the 11th of September a delega- 
tion of Swiss gentlemen arrived in Stras- 
bourg with permission from the Germans 
to take in their train some fourteen 
hundred persons, chiefly aged women 
and young children. These visitors 
brought to the besieged the startling 
news of Gravelotte ; of Sedan; of Ba- 
zaine Mocked up in Metz : of MacMahon 
defeated, and Bonaparte a prisoner in 
Germany; and of the Republic pro- 
claimed in Paris. The Imperial Prefect 
was at once impeached and deprived of 
his otiiee, and a municipal commission 
called to the mairie of the city the wise 
ami good M. Kuss, — a Republican, who 
was much beloved, and who was to be 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



287 



the last mayor of French Strasbourg, 

and to have a pathetic fate, as we shall 
see later on. 

On the 20th of September arrived in 
Strasbourg the new Prefect of the Lower 
Rhine, appointed by the government of 
National Defense in Paris. It is doubt- 
ful if any prefect ever had such diffi- 
culties in arriving at his post, as fell 
to the lot of this brave envoy from 
the capital, or such ingenuity in over- 
coming them. Disguised as a peasant 
he succeeded in reaching Schiltgheim. 
There he ran the Prussian lines, after 
having worked for several days on the 
entrenchments of the Germans in order 
to lull any suspicions that they might 
have, and, making his way towards the 
city walls, swam across the moat, and 
walking up to the sentinel, who shot 
twice at him, called upon him to desist. 
The stupefied sentinel halted him until 
the officer of the guard came to take 
him into the town to General Uhrich. 
When he was alone with the General, 
the new prefect ripped up one of his 
coat-sleeves, and from the rent in his 
garment extracted the official decree 
which named him Prefect of Strasbourg. 

The Germans had arranged to storm 
the city on the 30th of September, the 
anniversary of Strasbourg's loss to 
Germany in 1081. A pontoon bridge for 
crossing the ditch had been prepared, 
and, as the storming party would have 
been splendidly protected by the German 
guns, an actual attack would probably 
not have been long resisted. General 
Uhrich, as commander of the fortress, 
well knew that the French military code 
forbade him, under penalty, to give up 
the trust confided to him without a 
proper and a long resistance. To sur- 
render without a breach in the walls of 
Strasbourg would have been treason to 
France. But on the evening of the 



"27th of September the white flag was 
hoisted. General Ullrich's proclamation, 
announcing the surrender of the town, 
stated his belief that resistance was no 
longer possible. The poor, half-starved 
inhabitants crept out from their damp 
cellars, from the churches, and from the 
board houses along the canals where 
they had taken refuge, and flocked 
around the Cathedral, from the topmost 
spire of which the flag was flying. 

On the 28th the Mayor issued his 
proclamation, announcing that the gar- 
rison would lie allowed to go out with 
the honors of war, and that the German 
occupation would at once begin. On 
the day of the capitulation the public 
squares of Strasbourg were literally 
strewn with arms, which had been broken 
and thrown away by the angry and 
humiliated French soldiers. Most of 
those men who behaved with so little 
good-sense were members of African 
regiments, though the Mobile Guard 
and the National Guard, composed of 
the citizens of Strasbourg, maintained 
their dignity. General Von Werderand 
his staff did not enter the city until the 
30th of September, when Strasbourg was 
opened, as the Germans maintain, by 
treason, to the forty thousand invading 
French in 1681. 

The spectacle that met the eyes of the 
Germans at the close of the bombardment 
exceeded in extent all previous con- 
ception. The two northern suburbs of 
Strasbourg, for a space measuring seven 
thousand feet long by eighteen hundred 
feet wide, according to the estimate of 
the celebrated architect, Dembler, of 
Mecklenburg, were one mass of ruins. 
Only here and there a solitary wall 
stood up like a monument amid the deso- 
lation. Heir Dembler, in his inspection 
of the town, discovered that there were 
scarcely one hundred houses uninjured ; 



288 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



four hundred and forty-eight were 
totally destroyed; and more than three 
thousand were riddled willi shot and shell. 
About fifteen thousand in the suburbs, 
before the ramparts, were almost entirely 
destroyed. Of the civil population three 
hundred persons had been killed, and 
seventeen hundred wounded, by the 
bombardment. Nearly twenty thousand 
persons were left without homes or 
money ; and the most moderate estimates 
made by the Germans themselves of the 
losses, on buildings, furniture, goods, 
schools, churches, the museum, the 
theatre, the prefecture, the Hotel de 
Ville, the court-house, the bridges, etc., 
were '_'()(). (11)0. ODD francs. The value of 
the art collections, and especially of the 
library, is incalculable. Truly the game 
of war does not pay. 

That which contributed most to keep 



alive the French hatred of the German 
troops invading Alsatia was the story 
published throughout Fiance shortly 
after the triumphal entry Of the Germans 
into Strasbourg. It was to this effect: 
that the commander-in-chief of the Prus- 
sian army, in billeting his officers and em- 
ployes upon the starved and ruined in- 
habitants of the city, issued the decree 
that each one of the persons billeted 
should have in the morning a breakfast, 
composed of coffee or tea, and bread and 
butter; at noon a second breakfast, com- 
posed of soup and a solid dish of meat 
and vegetables; and in the evening a 
dinner, composed of soup, two dishes of 
meat, vegetables, dessert, and coffee; 
and, dining the day, two bottles of good 
table wine and five cigars. 

This was the crowning stroke. 



EUROPE JiV STURM AXD CALM. 



289 



CHAPTER THIRTY. 



Through the Conquered Country. — Strasbourg afterits Trial.— Eaihvay Journeys under Prussian Military 
Rule. — Nancy. — The Bavarians. — Epernay.— The Story of Pere Jean. — Getting up to Versailles. 
— The Voices of the Forts. 



ABOUT four o'clock in the morning, 
some days after my first view of 
Strasbourg under lire, I arrived at Kehl, 
where plenty of ruin had been wrought 
by the French shells. The old railway 
station was gone, and I stood shivering 
in the cold night air until we were per- 
mitted to cross the Rhine on the pontoon- 
bridge, which was guarded by dozens of 
soldiers, as if the Germans anticipated 
the return of the French forthwith. A 
carriage soon brought me to the interior 
of Strasbourg. The drive from the 
Rhine bank to the town was through a 
scene of the rudest desolation. Great 
trees a century old lay to right and left, 
stripped of their branches, where once 
they had stood the lofty guardians of a 
graceful avenue. Houses to right ami 
in front were all burned and seared by 
hot shot and shell, and the customs build- 
ings were entirely ruined. A gentleman 
who occupied the seat next me had been 
beleaguered in the city three weeks, and 
said that at least twenty-five hundred 
people were either killed or wounded 
during his stay there. I took coffee 
hastily in the little hotel next the ruined 
museum, and proceeded at once to the 
railway station to encounter the " Etapen 
Commando." The streets were crowded 
with the stout soldiers of Baden, whose 
uniform was none of the nicest, and who 
compared very unfavorably with either 
the Prussians or the French. 

My pass from the general staff in Ber- 
lin was fortunately worded so as to ig- 



nore the fact that I was a "newspaper 
writer," else I should have been looked 
upon with profound disdain by the olli- 
cial whom I now encountered. He soon 
gave me a legitimalions-Kdrte, good for 
the journey to Nancy ; and by aid of this 
I secured a place in the military train. 
The carriages in use were nearly all 
Prussian or Southern German, the East- 
ern French railway having succeeded in 
removing its rolling stock before the 
invasion had reached its line. All 
distinction of classes was abolished for 
the time being, by tacit consent, and 
Alsatian peasants occupied first-class 
compartments in the railway carriages 
for the first time, probably, in their 
lives. 

We moved very slowly, with frequent 
stops between stations, and it was wit It 
much difficulty that the Prussian officials 
succeeded in making the French tinder- 
stand the various new regulations. A 
railway staff hail been brought from 
Germany, and either could not or would 
not communicate with the French in the 
French language ; and there were mis- 
understandings and vexations innumer- 
able. The train had a guard of forty or 
fifty soldiers in a front carriage, and the 
other travellers were officers, telegraph 
and postal couriers, and special messen- 
gers going to the front. All through the 
great passage of the Vosges, and in the 
fertile valleys at the foot of the moun- 
tains, there was an atmosphere of neg- 
lect. There were no workmen in the 



290 



EUROPE IN STOBM AND CALM. 



fields, save now and then an adventu- 
rous ploughman vviih a solitary horse. 
The great forests and leafy glades were 
mystic with cheekerwork of light and 
shade ; and we might have imagined that 
we were on a holiday excursion, if at every 
station we had uot seen the watchful 
guards, and stacked behind them the 
needle-guns, which guaranteed the forci- 
ble possession of Alsatia and Lorraine. 
The oilicials. red-capped and jauntily 
dressed, joked and laughed with the 
peasant girls who sold refreshments for 
the officers ; and whenever a soldier took 
anything without paying the properprice, 
an officer was promptly called to redress 
the wrong and collect the offender. 

On all tile roads along the hills we 
could see lone processions of army teams, 
wagons drawn by powerful horses, slowly 
winding their various ways like huge ser- 
pents. Before them rode the Uhlans, 
gay and singing, their white and black 
lance pennons waving gracefully. Here 
and there across the mellow fields 
spurred a Bavarian or a Saxon officer, 
carrying orders from one dorf to another. 
Sometimes, in descending from the car- 
riage, 1 met a peasant, who cursed me 
fluently while I purchased his bread and 
wine; ami once an old woman was so 
violent in her language that I beat a 
hasty retreat. But in general the popu- 
lation was resuming its normal mood. 
Occasionally one cursed you roundly 
and sold you his goods at the same time, 
or chatted pleasantly and asked eagerly 
for news. After seven hours of tedious 
riding we arrived at Nancy. I wished 
to push on to Versailles, but was told 
that the trains did not. run nights in war- 
time ; so I went, through the surging 
masses of soldiery into the town. 

General Yon Bonim, the commander 

of Nancy and the neighboring districts, 
was one of the few Prussians who have 



been whipped in recent times. An Aus- 
trian General gave him a thrashing in 
1866, and he had never risen to the level 
of combative success since that, occasion. 

But he seemed to have succeeded well in 
his difficult mission at Nancy. I heard 
no word of complaint uttered against 
him, and the towns-people seemed to 
have a. certain admiration for his qualities. 
1 called on him, ami received my in- 
structions for the next day's journey, then 
entered the restaurant of a hotel and 
suggested the serving of dinner, as I had 
had nothing to eat for fifteen hours. 

" You must, wait," said the gargon, 
"until seven o'clock, until the regular 
dinner. We have very little and must 
economize what we have. You cannot 
get much here." Whereupon 1 succeeded 
in persuading him that I was a neutral, 
and must be fed then and there. " Do 
you pay, or have you a billet delogement .' " 
said he. " My friend, I pay, of course." 

'■ All, well," said he, employing a slang 
Parisian phrase, ' ; that is another pair of 
sleeves, and I will see." I had rarely 
been better served; and at dessert the 
gargon brought, me a noble cluster of 
grapes, of which 1 am sure the unhappy 
officers who boarded at the table d'hdte 
saw none. 

It was amusing to End the Prussian 
soldiers, who received only seven and a 
half thalers per month, besieged by peas- 
ants ami old women, miserably clad, and 
trembling with the cold, who insisted 
upon having alms. I looked in at the 
Cooperative store at Nancy, and found 
that there was serious distress among 
the poor. The German soldiers nave, 
but not without grumbling. An old 
woman cursed me from a third-story 
window during one of my walks in the 
town, because I was hard-hearted towards 

a little girl who insisted upon charity. 
In the Place Stanislaus, one of the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



291 



finest squares in France, I saw sev- 
eral companies of Bavarians drawn up, 
waiting for billets of lodging. A few 
also were in a neighboring shop endeav- 
oring to follow the rules relative to the 
exchange between Prussian and French 
money. Notices, amply explanatory, 
were posted in every place of business. 
and the thaler and pfennig, — words al- 
most unpronounceable to French lips, — 
had entirely replaced the franc and cen- 
time. The walls were covered with im- 
mense staring notices, enumerating the 
things that must or must not be done. 
The Moniteur Officiel, for this depart- 
ment, issued by the Prussians, and printed 
in French, was p. ..-led on the bulletin 
boards. There was no news in it ; but 
the reader was invited to the contem- 
plation of a series of ordinances relative 
to the cattle plague. From the Place 
Stanislaus, I went down to the fine old 
Palace of Justice, where Marshal Cau- 
robert once made his home ; and the 
peasant who accompanied me said that 
the story of the capture of Nancy by 
five Uhlans was true. 

"I was in the square myself," he said, 
"when they rode in, and there was no 
serious talk of resistance. One or two 
peasants whispered, ' Let us knock 
them on the head,' but the more prudent 
at once restrained them. We were not 
afraid of them, but of what they repre- 
sented." 

The principal cafes in Nancy were 
filled with German officers, quietly sip- 
ping their beer, and reading their letters 
from home. The politeness of these 
men towards the inhabitants who entered 
was curious to observe. None of the 
soldiers were overbearing, and made 
way in some of the public places some- 
what as if they considered themselves 
intruders. Regiments of Bavarians 
were constantly pouring into the town, 



and hastening to seek their quarters for 
the night. Here, as in most of the oc- 
cupied towns, a little notice was con- 
spicuously posted, and the citizens had 
good reason to be thankful for it. It 
read thus : 

Any arbitrary requisition, whether by word 
or by sign, calculated to intimidate any inhabi- 
tant, wilt be punished in a severe manner. 
Signed, 

The Etapen Commando. 

This effectually prevented much in- 
justice on the part of the soldiers; but 
many comical misunderstandings arose 
between conquerors and conquered. In 
the evening, I saw a French peasant, 
woman in a frightful passion against 
a young Bavarian officer, who, she said, 
had been twice quartered in their house, 
and who now returned to insult them by 
insisting on staying a third time. But 
a little inquiry disclosed the fact that 
the officer had simply returned to ex- 
press his gratitude for the handsome 
manner in which he had been treated, 
and to leave a small gratuity. At the 
H6tel de Paris, where the commander 
had established head-quarters, most of 
the officers appeared to have won the 
favorable opinion of the landlady, who, 
to sum all up, said, "I thoroughly 
believe they have only one fault." — 
"What is that?" — "They are Prus- 
sians." 

Naturally enough all the theatres and 
amusements were at an end. There 
were no restrictions to traffic between 
one town to another ; and the Etapen 
Commando gave " safe conducts " to all 
peasants who asked for them. The 
farmers and crop-growers of the vicinity 
had but one aim, — to keep within the 
pale of Prussian law. 

At Nancy we found the journals 
which had come down from Rheirns, and 



292 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Soissons, and the other towns in that beside them. Veteran colonels, in fur 
section. These were little scrubby half- robes, which rose to their shoulders, and 
sheets, printed on poor paper, and en- fell to their heels, rushed to and fro, 
tirely devoid of news. In the Indepen- snarling their orders A wounded 
dance liemois, :it the head of the first French officer crawled along on his 
column on the first page, in large type, crutches, and asked to be directed by 
was the following: '-The German an- the quickest route to Bordeaux. The 
thorities communicate to ns. with an brawny men of the army gang from 
order to insert it, the following de- Switzerland, Saxony, and the Rhine 
spatch," Then came one of King Wil- shouldered through the mass, singing 
Hum's brief but sententious accounts of their dialect songs; and a village citri, 
a Prussian victory. Telegraphic de- with a red cross on his arm, told me 
spatches were all distinguished as fol- terrible stories of the recent battles 
lows: "From German sources." "De- around Metz. The peasants produced 
spatches of Foreign Origin." It must their safe conducts, and received yellow 
have been trying to the inhabitants of tickets printed in German in exchange. 
Nancy to submit to the arrival among Post officials, with huge red bands round 
them of the crowd of Hamburg, Frank- their caps, hugged their courier bags, 
fort, and Strasbourg Jews, by no means and fought for the best places in the 
of the choicest kind, who had followed train ; and at last we got off exactly 
the army, and bung out their signs in three hours behind time, 
every street. The tobacco trade had In my compartment I found a Prus- 
been mainly accorded to the Hamburg- sian doctor, attached to the fifteenth 
ers, who were driving a brisk trade with division of the Eighth army corps, which 
the soldiery. Many of the business was then stationed at Rheims. lie had 
places had been rented by the Hebrews, seen much of the lighting around Metz, 
with the stipulation that the leases should and had been ill with that terrific scourge 
last until the withdrawal of the German of the Prussian army before the fortress 
troops. of the Moselle, the typhoid fever. He 
In Ihe morning, when I went to the had been sent home to die, but a sniff of 
train for Epernay, I found the station the fresh air of Berlin had brought him 
crowded with troops all bound up the back to life, he said, and so he was on 
line. There were the stout, rotund the road again, lie gave a picturesque 
Prussian, shining in blue and gold, description of the burning, by French 
jaunty, saucy, and defiant ; the light- shells, of a house in which there were 
mustached, thin-lipped, high-shouldered many French wounded, and the impress 
boy from the hussars, full of wine, of truth was in all that he said, lie 
and patting every peasant girl on the testified readily to the truth of the gen- 
shoulder; the ponderous Landwehr- cral supposition that the Prussian losses 
man, sedate and sullen, looking sadly at in killed, during the war, had thus far 
the children playing about the station ; exceeded those of the French. But he 
the lumpy and clownish Bavarian; the spoke with particular earnestness of the 
ethereal Saxon, resplendent in sky-blue ; superiority of the German soldiers over 
and the northern Polish, Breslau, and others in withstanding fatigue. " Ty- 
Poseu Lancers, gliding about among phus, bad water, and. sometimes, bad 
their comrades, who looked like dwarfs liquor," were the main enemies the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



293 



German trooper had to encounter. The 
wounds made by the chassepdts, he 
thought, were very deadly, and, if not 
attended to shortly after they were in- 
flicted, the consequences were nearly 
always grave. " Mere pain," he said, 
"does not wear out the German, as it 
does other soldiers." lie was especially 
eulogistic of the French troops which 
his corps met before Met/., and recounted 
an instance which spoke volumes. A 
captain with a handful of men was 
cornered and called on to surrender. 
" We all stood and looked on," said the 
doctor. •' But the captain cried. ' For- 
ward to die ! ' and they went in 
again, but they never came out." 

In this same train was the aide-major 
of the French department of the military 
hospital at Versailles. He had eared for 
the wounded there until he was selected 
to undertake the difficult mission of 
escorting the pardled convalescent 
French through the lines to a point 
whence they could reach their homes, 
and to take the prisoners as far as 
Nancy en route for Germany. Exposure 
and fatigue had quite broken him down ; 
and he was so worn out that he fell twice 
during an hour's walk which we took in 
one of the long stoppages of the train at 
a small station. The Etapen Commando, 
when we stopped later in the journey 
over night, said, "Poor fellow! give 
him a good lodging. He is worse off 
than those he cares for." But the 
aide-major clung on to overloaded 
carriages, to baggage trains, to filthy 
carts crowded with troops, until he was 
back at his post. He was seven days 
in making his way from Versailles to 
Nanteuil with one hundred and thirty 
convalescents, not long before I had met 
him. They were compelled to walk the 
whole distance, the Mayors of the little 
towns through which they passed not 



daring to give them conveyances. Once, 
in order to procure a vehicle for one or 
two discouraged members of his troop, 
he was compelled to threaten the Mayor 
with the Prussians. " I got my car- 
riage." he said with a smile, " in ten 
minutes." 

The traveller from Strasbourg to 
Paris, on his arrival at Epernay, in the 
pleasant country of Champagne, used to 
be set upon by a dozen peasants, who 
insisted upon selling him forthwith the 
real nectar of the gods at the cost of 
2."> cents per pint. The credulous 
traveller who imbibed this compound 
was for days afterwards troubled with 
singular sensations in head and stomach, 
and finally discovered that he, as well as 
the basely adulterated drink, bad been 
"sold." On my arrival this time at 
Epernay, I found the same peasantry 
driving a brisk trade among the sturdy 
German soldiers, who, under the influ- 
ence of the cheering fluid, insisted upon 
kissing every girl who came within their 
reach. At Epernay is the branch line 
leading to Rheims and Soissons ; and 
here were hundreds of ears rolling away 
with supplies for the Eighth army corps. 
All along the route from Strasbourg up, 
we had met a great variety of trains, 
showing the richness of the Prussian 
military resources. Sometimes trundled 
by us a hundred empty carriages, all 
marked with a red cross. At one station, 
I counted sixty baggage-cars filled with 
disinfectants alone for the camps around 
Paris. At Nancy and Epernay were 
great heaps of hospital bedding and 
sacks of lint, for which there was as yet 
no room in the overcrowded hospitals 
beyond. Thousands of barrels of pe- 
troleum were safely stored in many 
[daces; and as for grain there were 
countless sacks of it, and mountains of 
forage: and the blue-bloused peasants 



294 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 

were working' night aud day to carry it carriage nor horse was to bo had for 
to the army. money or persuasion. The EtapenCorn- 
The Prussians had lost great numbers mando advised me to sleep over my dis- 
of horses in (he campaign, the climate appointment for that night, and in the 
strangely affecting them ; and new in- morning he would appeal on my behalf. 
stalments were constantly brought up In company with two fellow-travellers 
from northern Germany; while buyers I walked a mile to the town under the 
for the army were everywhere in Ham- hill. Nanteuil was crowded, and a peas- 
burg, Scotland, Ireland, and England, ant woman informed me that I was none 
1 sleptat Epernay, anil rose before the too good to sleep out of doors. I went 
dawn, expecting to leave by an early t" see the Mayor, a little Quilpy man 
train for Nanteuil, at which point, with a greasy coat, protruding upper lip, 
because the French had blown up the and a wondrous pair of spectacles. 
great tunnel under the mountain, railway lie was willing, hut incapable. Slept 
communication was at an end. From on the floor himself; used to it. No 
Nanteuil to Versailles there were si\ floor for us to sleep on? No; he rather 
posts, and 1 was told that if I made two thoughtnot. Inquire at the next village, 
daily I should be lucky. In order to another mile away, on the bank of the 
reach Versailles it was necessary to take Marne. 

a long and wide sweep around Paris. Crouttes looked inviting; hut no one 

through a host of the pretty suburban offered a lodging. In the middle of a 

villages. Visions of mild and endless long street stood a little group, — a bent 

army convoys rose before my eves. I and feeble old man, a hale, brown, and 

waited four hours at Epernay, and was scholarly looking fellow at his side, and 

finally compelled to clamber on to an some country bumpkins in wooden shoes, 

open truck of a construction train, and We asked them if French money would 

on this shaky vehicle I reached, late in buy us lodging. " No," said the old 

the afternoon, a high plateau, from man, " not here. I have thirty horses in 

whence there was a charming view of the my stable and eight postilions in my 

placid Marne, winding its way through house, and I can do no more. Have you 

the greenest of Melds ami amid vine- billets of lodging ? " — '-No." — "Well," 

clad hills. In the distance nestled two said the scholar, " in that case, Pere Jean 

brown picturesque villages, Nanteuil and will see what he can do for you." lie 

Crouttes. insisted on the old farmer's finding us 

Bivouacs were numerous all along the a place ; and it was not until after he had 

hillsides, and tires gleamed among the departed that wc discovered we had made 

forests. The little railway station was the acquaintance of one of the most fa- 

almost literally covered with i utains moiis of Parisian painters. 

of mail matter, delayed in transit toVer- The old man was sixty-two years of 

sailles. I walked around one of the age, and had worked in the fields at ig 

heaps, twenty feet long aud six feet high ; the vines ever since he was ten. It is 

another rose to a height of twelve feet, a rude life, because you must be up in 

The " field-post" wagons were loading, the morning before four o'clock, and 

hub-deep in the mud; and the sturdy twist and pet your vines before the sun 

Pomeranians were singing as they swung comes to look at them. Then, because 

the sacks on to the trucks. Here neither your wife has worked by your side all 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



295 



da)', — that is the fashion in vineyard 
land, — yon must help her in the kitchen, 
and it is ten o'clock at night before bed- 
time comes. "It rattles your old bones," 
said Pere Jean. But for the last month 
Pete Jean had done but little work in the 
fields. He had been busy with the re- 
ception and care of soldiers of the Prus- 
sian government, and both he and his old 
■wife were nearly worn out. Every even- 
ing a corporal arrived with six men tor 
Einquarterung, and the household hail 
been nightly upset. 

Pere Jean passed for a rich man 
among his simple neighbors, By fifty 
years of industry he had amassed 25,000 
francs, and owned a, huge old stone farm- 
house and a huge court with capacious 
stables. ""When the first Prussians 
came they made a requisition on me 
which quite discouraged me ; but since 
then. VOyez-VOUS," he said, " I have 
become used to it. They took from me 
thirty casks of wine, my best cattle, and 
pretty nearly all my linen, which was 
my wife's especial [aide." He said that 
it was hard for him to believe that war 
consisted in taking his cattle and his 
wine, as well as, his first-born and his 
dealest son. 

While our dinner was cooking over a 
huge open fireplace we went into the 
stables, and saw the beautiful, strong- 
animals, which served the royal despatch- 
bearers ; and here the Prussian postilions 
were moaning over a number of superb 
beasts which were dying from tin' effects 
of hard work ami the climate. After 
many difficulties we arranged to leave 
the next morning with the post-wagon 
bound for Corlieil ; whence to Versailles 
we could push on alone. 

All through this champagne country 
the peasantry are of the simplest habits. 
Their ideas of comfort and elegance are 
primitive in the extreme. Iu one corner 



of the huge old kitchen, into which the 
farmer ushered us stood an enormous 
curtained lied. One or two chairs, 
some benches, and a table were all 
the remaining furniture. Above, the 
bed-chambers were of Pompeian simplic- 
ity. The floors were of stone, and the 
beds were hard and small. The house 
stood at the bottom of a huge court-yard 
which opened on the street by means of 
a large door, to which was appended a 
heavy knocker. We were given a great 
chamber, only used in times of peace 
for bridals, funerals, and rustic balls, 
and there we deposited our mattresses on 
the floor, the only couch in it being cov- 
ered with the remnants of the good wife's 
linen-chest, and our host evidently dis- 
liking to displace them. The old woman, 
whose limbs were stiff with long labor in 
the fields, informed us that she had not 
strength to serve; and we were obliged 
to wait upon our own table. Towards 
eight o'clock arrived the usual comple- 
ment of German soldiery, who brought 
their own provisions with them and 
cooked them, then sat quietly before 
the fireside late into the night, singing 
quaint hymns and soldier songs, in which 
we could find no taint of vulgarity. By 
midnight all was still ; and the trumpets 
of the postilions, blended with the chant 
of a cavalry troop going past, aroused us 
in the morning. 

Old Pere .lean was very explicit in 
his reproaches against the Emperor. 
'■ Xow, then," said he. taking a spoonful 
of coffee in his trembling hand as we were 
leaving in the morning, " if I could buy 
the Emperor back with that, I would not 
do it. I have long enough voted and 
labored for him, but now, after what he 
has done, I cannot think of any fate bad 
enough for him." lie thought that the 
people of his section might revolt one 
day unless the rigor of the requisitions 



29G EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

was softened. "We have patience," "The French Republic, 1870. Liberty, 
he added, "because France has in a Equality, Fraternity." Here, for the 
measure brought this war on herself; first time also, we saw sentinels at the 
but we must not be pushed." entrance of a town. They were sheltered 
A little after dawn we went away at in little straw-covered boxes; and were 
the bead of a long train of wagons continually on the alert to salute the 
loaded with the royal mail. Each of officers and question the peasants who 
these wagons had a comfortable coupi passed in and out. Towards dusk we 
in front with room for authorized pas- came to the gate of a chateau, thirty-two 
sengers. But the transportation of kilometers from Paris; and in front of 
civilians was forbidden. Our military the gates the postilions began playing 
passes seemed to entitle us to the privi- cheery tunes upon their horns, 
lege of journeying witb this postal train ; The chateau stood in the midst of a 
and preseiitiv we got away through a fertile plain, witb gently sloping hills in 
country much frequented by Francs- the distance. It was one of those an- 
Tireurs, without any guard of soldiers; eient manors upon which, in all old 
and we observed that the postilions car- countries, generally hangs a. dirty and 
ried no visible weapons. There were sordid dependency of a hamlet, notable 
sixteen wagons, each drawn by three chielly for its hovels and unclean streets. 
horses. The drivers weii' all from North As we entered on the turf-carpeted green 
Germany. They wore a handsome uni- of the castle a body of Wurtemburg 
form of dark blue, bordered witb red. soldiers marched out to meet us, and the 
Each carried a horn suspended at his side, chorus of horns from the old servants' 
Of these men then- are several thousand hall of the domain made the night- 
ill the Prussian service. The Bavarian air melodious. There was a whiff of 
and Saxon armies also have their field- rain in the atmosphere; a light wind 
post. The orders were never to halt tugged at the masses of dead leaves in 
save when the horses must rest and be the forest, seeming to urge them to 
fed. Two conductors, who rode some fantastic dances. A Pomeranian, deco- 
distance ahead, marked out the routes ated with all the colors in the Prussian 
for the journeys, taking always the military chrome, came out to meet us. 
shortest and least crowded way. 1 )e- " You are just in time," he said ; "there 
spite their adroitness we wen' often bin- was an alerte, as the French call it, ou 
dered by long teams of munition-wagons, your route about an hour ago; but no 
which weie slowly making their way along one was hurt." He invited us to stay 
the muddy hills. For half a mile along and sup with the postilions; but we 
the road from Xanteiiil we saw nothing sought lodgings outside the chateau 
lint immense heaps of cannon-balls. In gates at the hostelry. It could only 
many places rude booths for the sale afford us one room and no bedding, so 
of provisions to passing soldiers had we slept on chairs as best we could, 
been established. We went on through much disturbed by the boisterous songs 
Lal'crte-sous-.Iouarre to Coulommieres, sung by Pomeranian troopers, who 
where there were many hundreds of sol- were drinking in the room below. The 
diers quartered, and where, for the first burden of the principal song was " Jesu, 
time since the declaration of the Republic, Maria;" whence I concluded that our 
I saw these words inscribed on an edifice : military friends were religiously disposed. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



297 



Our host came (o talk witb us late at 
night, saving', when asked it he could 
furnish provisions, wine, etc., that he 
had nothing left. But when lie found that 
we were neither Prussians nor French, 
and were certain to pay him, he filled 
our baskets from a well-stocked larder. 
We were oft' again at sunrise, clatter- 
ing through a blinding rain, and en route 
for Tournois, a quaint ami pleasant 
town. At each itape, or post, our passes 
were n'sril. and we were often questioned 
concerning our business at head-quarters. 
About noon we passed through a great 
finest, and saw numbers of horses with 
their throats cut lying by the road-side, 
where they had fallen from fatigue. 
One or two were not dead, as we passed 
them, and it was piteous to hear them 
neigh faintly as they heard the sound of 
hoofs. Their butchers, some Bavarians, 
were just ahead, and from them we 
learned that a heavy fight had taken 
place three days before, at Dreux. 
Here, also, we saw some Uhlans for- 
aging. Two of them rode up to a village 
at a little distance from the load, and 
presently overtook us with some fat hens 
tied to their saddle-bows. An old woman 
ran out after them, looking wistfully at 
her poultry, — perhaps not the first she 
had been called upon to furnish. The 
rain came rolling down in great spouts 
across the plain on which we now- 
entered ; and some of the weaker Prus- 
sians ami Bavarians — - part of a march- 
ing column which we were passing — 
sank down by the road-side. Our drivers 
heeded none of their appeals to lie taken 
up, and told us that it was against orders 
to carry a soldier. Many of the younger 
men were so stiff that they could nol 
move their limbs, and some French 
peasants, overcome by pity, put them 
into their carts, and thus they jolted 
wearily along. We passed, this day, 



about one thousand wagons at different 
periods, all laden with sick and wounded, 
coming down from " Vor Paris." These 
were most pitiful to look upon. Many 
of the men were half dead with fever, 
others so grievously wounded that at 
every jolt of the rough carts cries of 
pain were wrung from them. Three or 
four of these wretches were always 
huddled together under a, little canvas 
covering, and lay groaning, a mass of 
sickness and desolation. Beside these 
processions always rode a guard of the 
watchful Uhlans. Towards evening we 
reached C'orbeil, where the French, 
in a frenzied horror on learning of the 
approach of the Prussians, had blown 
up one of the finest bridges on the Seine. 
The Prussians insisted that the French 
should have this repaired by a certain 
date, or pay a heavy fine. The date 
was passed when we arrived, but the 
work was not completed. Two tempo- 
rary bridges allowed the army free pas- 
sage ; and here at C'orbeil the Prussians 
had established a strong depot for mili- 
tary stores. As we descended the .steep 
hill leading into the town the thunder 
of the Prussian cannon was plainly 
heard. All C'orbeil was in excitement. 
The cannon had not been heard before 
for many days, and the inhabitants con- 
cluded that a general action was taking 
place. Montrouge was barking furi- 
ously in return ; and now and then the 
sonorous voice of Mont Valerien was 
heard clamoring for war. To this 
music we sat down to supper. Find- 
ing that if one went into the streets 
after seven o'clock he was liable to 
arrest, we rolled into the first comforta- 
ble beds we had seen for three days. 
Here were also mountains of mail matter, 
and here the roads were worn out with 
the constant passage of heavy army 
trains. The mud was so deep that, a 



298 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 

wagon once fixed in it, the united efforts hints were witnesses without expression 

of a whole company could scarcely stir of approval or discontent. In every 

it. It was evident that for the good lady town there was a battery and a sanitary 

of the inn where we staved the war had station. All the important places of 

its revenges, for her customers were all business were closed, and at Villeneuve 

officers of superior grade, and paid St. Georges, a beautiful suburban resort 

roundly for what they had. The rail- for Parisians, there were only a few 

way station had been closed for two people left. The houses which had been 

months. The clock was stopped at ten closed by their owners remained ini- 

minutes past eight, the hour when the touched, — no troops were quartered in 

last train left the town. Towards noon or near them. 

of the next day my companions de- We drew up before the chief bureau 

parted for Lagny, and I climbed alone of the Prussian military post-office, hav- 

into the post wagon of the Third army ing made our nine leagues from Corbeil 

corps, said post wagon being a dilapi- to Versailles in three hours and a, half, 

dated omnibus which formerly ran to There was a sullen, ominous roaring in 

l.on jiuneaii. We took two soldiers as a the direction of Paris, which, at first, 

guard, and clattered away over the seemed to lie steadily approaching ; but 

hills, shortly to meet a convoy of un- I soon became accustomed to the voices 

happy French prisoners marching from of the forts. 

Dreux down to the railway of Lagny, In the hotel, where I succeeded after 

I hence to be sent into Germany. This many entreaties in getting a lodging, all 

was one of the saddest spectacles I had the soldiers who had been quartered 

seen. The whole ghastly mass of men, there for the last, two n ths had pet 

faltering past, hurried forward rather names, and took part in the household 

brutally by cavalry, the wounded drudgery, as if they were sons of the 

crowded in carts, and hanging down family. On the evening of my arrival 

their feverish heads, the women stand- a wretched sneak of a Bavarian, newly 

ing in the doorways, and calling on Cod arrived, had stolen a little spaniel, which 

to crush the Prussians, the hungry looks was one of the household treasures, and 

of the officers as they saw through the a whole corporal's guard was turned out 

open windows their enemies feasting in to bring him to justice. The dog was 

cabarets, — all this left a pang in my found, and the officer, in investigating the 

mind, and cut to the heart. ease, made as much ado as if it had 

The nearer one approached Versailles, been theft of an object of art from the 

the more evident it was that the Germans palace. The landlady, who was highly 

had come for a lone' stay. •' Not even confidential, informed me that two of 

if Paris makes peace to-morrow," said a the best of her invading friends, August 

Wurtemburg officer to me, '-will the ami Heinrich, were to go to Orleans to- 

troops be withdrawn until the caution morrow. "It is a burning shame," 

money" — as he called it — '-is paid." said the old lady, "to scud such hand- 

Soine of the villages along the road pre- some boys as that to be slaughtered;" 

senteil quite a holiday appearance: a and she looked quite disconsolate. 

regimental band was giving a morning ••When the Prussians are gone," she 

concert in one; in another, there was a remarked shortly afterwards, "it will 

review of cavalry, at which the inhabi- fie very lonesome at Versailles: there 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



299 



will he nothing but you casual stran- 
gers." 

The invaders bowed not only to the 
charms but to the authority of the 
French serving-maids. In the front 
parlor of the inn, on this evening in 
question, I remarked four stalwart 
fellows who had just arrived with their 
billets all in proper order. In hearty 
German style they began to clamor, 
"Madame! Here! Attention! Bed! 
A light ! Supper ! " Upon this, the 
beautiful housemaid came upon the 



scene, withering them all with a glance. 
" Silence, you noisy dragons! You big 
one with a white cap, take off your 
sword, and sit down ! Silence, all of 
you ! " Cowed and overwhelmed, al- 
though not understanding a word, the 
hungry fellows sat down, nor dared to 
stir until Agnes found time to serve 
them, an hour or two later. If one pre- 
sumed to proffer gallantly he had good 
reason to remember the avenging arm of 
Agnes. 



300 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. 

Tlic Period of [lope. — Splendid Improvisation of Defense. — What Paris did under Pressure. — The 
Forts and their Armament. — The Departure of Gambetta in :i Balloon. — Outcropping of the Com- 
mune. — Fights outside the Walls of the Capital.- - The Defense "t ( 'hateaudun.— A Bright Page in 
From h Military Annals. — A Panic ;it Versailles. —Von Moltke saves his Papers. — German Prepa- 
rations for 1 tefense. 

"KTQ cloubl the Government of Na- honorable because it offered such a 

-L-N tional Defense received a severe striking contrast to their negligence, 

moral shock from the tone of the inter- carelessness, and want of thought under 

view which its representative had had at the Empire. 

Ferrieres with the exacting ami uncom- The government found that it was no 

promising enemy; still, the period of small task t<> man the walls of Paris. 

the sieo'e of Paris comprised between The chain of forts from Charenton, 

the occupation of Versailles and the first stretching entirely round (he city, cov- 

days of November may be characterized ered a distance of no less than thiity- 

as the period of hope. The position of nine kilometres, without counting the 

the Germans for forty days after their detached works, some of which, like Mont 

arrival was by no means secure. They Valerien, were enormous and formidable 

had hut a comparatively small army at fortresses. These forts, — Charenton, 

their disposition, with which to under- Viucennes, Nogent, Rosuy, Noisy. L?o- 

take the most formidable investment of mainville, Aubervilliers, Est, Double 

the century. So long as Strasbourg and Couronne du Nord, La Breche, Mont 

Met/, delayed before their fortifications Valerien, Issy, Vanves, Montrouge, 

the other German troops which were so Bicetre, and Ivry, — sixteen in number, 

necessary to the investment of Paris, were from three to tour thousand metres 

Von Moltke could scarcely have felt apart, with the exception of La Breche 

certain of accomplishing his task. The and Mont Valerien, which were scp- 

fortunes of war might have placed him united by a gap of more than twelve 

in a humiliating and inextricable posi- thousand metres, and Mont Valerien 

tion, and the King of Prussia might have ami Issy seventy-five hundred metres 

found himself prisoner in France, while apart. None of these forts were more 

the Emperor of France was a prisoner in than live thousand, and some of them 

Germany. Of course the Germans had were only fifteen hundred, metres from 

a, perfect plan for laying the siege, as Paris proper. To guard the ninety-four 

they had plans for everything else, pre- bastions of this tremendous circle of 

pared and practised for half a genera- stone and iron more than one hundred 

tion. thousand men were necessary. Of reg- 

While ihev were doing as best they ular troops, the Committee of National 

could with the forces at their command Defense found that it could count upon 

outside, tin' besieged Parisians were scarcely sixty thousand of all branches, 

working with an energy all the more most, .if them brought back by General 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



301 



Vinoy from the neighborhood of Sedan. 
But there were the three hundred and 
fifty or three hundred and sixty thousand 
National Guards, and to them it was 
thought, despite the fears that they 
might undertake an insurrection of 
communistic character, necessary to 
confide the defense of the fortifica- 
tions. 

But this was not all. The men were 
found; the guards of the ramparts were 
found ; but each bastion ought for safety 



find a. garrison, well controlled, well 
equipped, and full of fight. 

The astonishing energy of our northern 
towns in our civil war was more than 
paralleled; it was fairly outdone by the 
gigantic and swift efforts of the Repub- 
lican government in Paris to build up the 
material for defense. 

The committee organized a corps of 
from sixty to seventy thousand men, 
soldiers or artisans of the better class, 
whose special duty was to make the 




CAMP OF THE FRENC1I MARINES AT ST. V1TRV. 



to be armed with seven pieces of cannon. 
Paris ought, in short, to have two great 
[tarks of artillery, each with two hundred 
and fifty cannon, in its reserve ; but the 
Empire had left it next to nothing. 
There were in the magazines neither 
shells nor the elements necessary to 
manufacture them. There were only 
about two million pounds of powder, or 
scarcely ten rounds apiece, to the cannon 
which Paris would have to possess if it 
made a respectable defense. In some 
of the forts there was only a guardian to 
watch over the material, where the 
Republican authorities had expected to 



cannon, the powder, and the other 
instruments of defense, and to put them 
into position. Without and within the 
city the activity for more than a month 
was incessant night and day. More 
than two million sacks filled with earth 
were placed upon the most exposed por- 
tions of the ramparts; in the bastions. 
great hogsheads, packed with sand, so 
arranged that they might serve as a 
second line of defense, were placed. 
Seventy powder magazines were impro- 
vised. Six of the principal forts were 
occupied by marines, taken from the 
ships which had proved so useless in the 



302 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



firsl part of tlie campaign. Electric 
lights, destined to prevent operations in 
the fields round Paris by the enemy 
during the night, were established on all 
the forts. The Seine was barred. The 
dozens of villages round about the 
capital were entrenched ; the houses were 
loopholed ; the streets wore filled with 
barricades; and eighty thousand men 
were put upon this work of fortifying 
the villages in a single day. A fort- 
night after the committee had begun its 
work two thousand one hundred and 
forty cannon were placed in position, 
and the stoic of powder had been 
increased to more than six million 
pounds. The public service of water 
had been cared for, so that the enemy 
could not reduce the fortress by thirst ; 
and the commission of civil engineers 
had ordered from the manufactories, 
hastily installed, more than one hundred 
mitrailleuses of different models, one 
hundred and fifteen Gatling and Chris- 
tophe guns, three hundred and twelve 
thousand cartridges for these cannon, 
fifty mortal's with their accessories, 
five hundred thousand shells of various 
calibre, five thousand bombs, three 
hundred cannon of a special new model, 
intended to carry as far as the German 
guns, which were said to be coming up 
for the threatened I lonibai'i Imeiit ; and, 
finally, there was a commission of bar- 
ricades, over which M. Rochefort had 
been called to preside, and which was 
supposed to be planning a net-work of 
barriers to constitute a third and final 
line ot defense in case the enemv suc- 
cessfully undertook an assault and was 
willing to indulge in the dangerous game 
of street-fighting. 

So. in this period of hope, the whole 
city was transformed into a vast camp 
and factory. The whole enceinte of the 
fortifications was divided into nine sec- 



tions, seven of which were commanded by 
admirals, under whose orders were the 
National Guard of Paris, divided into a 
first line on the ramparts, and a reserve. 
Behind these were the National Guard 
Mobile, as a second reserve, ami the 
troops of the line as a third. The artil- 
lery on the left bank of the Seine was 
commanded by a division-general named 
Bentzman, and General Pelissier com- 
manded that of the right bank. After a 
time, a service of gun-boats on the Seine 
was organized, and did considerable dam- 
age to the enemy. The fatal weakness 
of the defense was not to be remedied, 
for tin' Germans had done their best as 
soon as they could get to the point where 
it was manifest to prevent the Republic 
from repairing the neglect of the Empire. 
The fact that the heights of Montretout 
and Chatillon were not properly forti- 
fied enabled the Germans to bombard 
without difficulty all the forts on the 
southern side of the fortifications of 
Paris, and finally tin' whole southern 
section of the capital. If Chatillon had 
been provided with a decent defense it 
is probable that the bombardment of 
Paris would never have occurred. 

It took the Parisians some time to real- 
ize that they were actually hemmed in ; 
but they were brought to complete reali- 
zation of their position about the 9th or 
10th of October, when the supplies of 
fresh meat began to fail, and all classes 
were reduced to horse-flesh and to a va- 
riety of ingenious pretests for meat, 
which reflected much credit on the skill 
of the cooks of Paris, but which did little 
for the nourishment of the human frame. 

"October the nth," writes a Parisian, 
in his journal, of the siege, "a chicken 
was sold at 25 francs ; vegetables taken 
from the fields just within our picketlines 
and brought in and sold in the stl'eets h\ 
marauders who had stolen them were 



EUTtOT'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



303 



sold as quickly and for as high prices as 
if they were rare fruits." 

The lirst cloud that came over the 
period of hope in the siege was on the 
day when the regular ration — one hun- 
dred grammes per person — of fresh meal 
gave out, and it was publicly announced 
that no more could lie had. The Com- 
munists tried to take advantage of the 
situation. Cynical writers in radical 
papers spoke of a possible revolt of the 
people, and used the sinister phrase : 
"Hunger justifies the means." 

Felix Pyat, the old and dangerous 



People heard of " delegates of commit- 
tees of safety." This Communistic move- 
ment had its head-quarters at Belleville 
and Menilmontant, two sections of the 
city where the working class is in great 
majority. The National ( riiard, recruited 
from these quarters, was watched with 
grave anxiety by the Government of 
National Defense, for it was felt that 
from them would come the lirst attempt 
at civil war. 

Every day this faction grew bolder; 
finally it sent a delegation, headed by 
Flourens, whose history has been re- 






||M.«'l i p| 

m i - 







IM'XXIXfJ AWAY FROM THE SIEGE. 



offender against the laws of property and 
society, began to prate about the unity 
of goods as well as the unity of danger. 
The central Republican committee of the 
twenty wards of Paris, recently consti- 
tuted, began to publish its manifestoes. 
It was highly patriotic ; I nit from the out- 
set it was observed that all its efforts 
tended directly towards the establish- 
ment of the Commune. In one of its cir- 
culars it even demanded the immediate 
transferof thecontrol of municipal affairs 
from the general government to that of 
the "Commune of Paris." The jargon 
of the old Revolution began to appear. 
The ministers were called "citizens." 



counted in a previous chapter, at the 
head of some battalions, to demand of 
the government a certain number of 
arms, which were lying in the magazines 
of the State to insist that they should 
call for a levie en masse, and that an 
immediate sortie against the Prussians 
should be decided, on. This was the out- 
cropping of revolution with a vengeance, 
and General Trochu and his colleagues 
were unquestionably alarmed. ButGen- 
eral Trochu behaved with much clever- 
ness, reproached Flourens for having 
provoked the movement at such a time, 
and begged him to go back to his duty. 
Flourens immediately resigned his com- 



304 



FCROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



mission as an officer of the National 
Guard, and a number of bis fellow offi- 
cers followed his example. 

Nothing came of this manifestation, 
except that Floureus declared in the 
circles where he was popular that, in 
order to save Paris, " they would have to 
finish with these people at the H&tel de 
Ville," -— meaning the members of the 
Government of National Defense. 

Meantime Gambetta, after issuing a 
fierv proclamation auuounciug that the 
--• . which the Communists 
had asked for, was already an accom- 
plished fact in the provinces, stepped 
into the car of a balloon, and at the 
risk of his life, or at least of his liberty, 
set ofl on a voyage through the air, in 
the hope of reaching Tours, whore a 
delegation was doing its best to create a 
solid army. This aerial trip of Gam- 
betta's struck the popular fancy with 
• force, and his successful arrival 
within the French lines outside and the 
occasional report- of his energetic Labors 
did much to keep up the spirits of the 
Parisians". 

Gambetta was a determined enemy of 
the Communistic faction, and the Com- 
munists rejoiced when he had left Paris. 
["hey made two or three attempts to 
capture the Hotel de Ville at different 
times. These abortive insurrections 
were speedily reported to tile Prussians 
at Versailles, and exaggerated accounts 
of them spread about in the German 
lines, and served to explain that which 
; i Germaus had at first observed with 
astonishment, — that none of the great 
masses ^( forces within the waits of the 
eapital moved out to assail the auda- 
cious enemy. 

At last military operations were begun 
by the Parisians, who now had heard of 
the tall of Strasbourg, and who felt that 
determined efforts to break the German 



circle must in 1 made before it was 
strengthened. Put the various sorties 
at Bondy, at Malmaisou, where General 
Ducrot expected that he would find the 
Germans, but did not discover them : in 
front of the Fort of Montrouge, and at 
that same Chatillon which was already 
associated with so many disasters, — 
were productive of small good to the 
French cause. 

On the llth of October General 
Trochu thought that, from the great 
movements which were going on among 
the German troops in die rear of the 
south-eastern forts of Chatillon and 
Bagneux along the route from Versailles 
to Choisy, the Germans must have evac- 
uated the plateau of Chatillon ; so he 
made an effort to retake it. lie pushed 
on General Blanchard with about twelve 
thousand men, divided into three columns, 
to a point above Clamart, Chatillon, and 
Bagneux. These troops, supported by 
the forte of .Montrouge, Yanves, ami 
lssy. went up through the village of 
Clamart on to the road uniting Clamart 
and Chatillon, took the village of Bagn- 
eux, where the brave commandant 
Dampierre was mortally wounded. But 
when these troops came to undertake 
the assault on Chatillon they found that 
they had been entirely mistaken. They 
all beat a hasty retreat before the massi - 
of the enemy, which had not the slightest 
intention of giving up its vantage-ground 
in the neighborhood of the capital. 

The death of the commandant Dam- 
pierre made a great sensation in 
Paris. His body was placed in the Pan- 
on, with the sword of combat laid 
upon his breast, and there was a military 
demonstration at his funeral. 

Two days after this tight the Pari- 
sians saw great jets of tlame leaping up 
skyward in the direction ''i St. t loud. 
1 - denoted the burning of the Palace, 



UlUiol'K IN STORM AM) CALM 



305 



set on lire by shells from Mont Valerien, 
because the French believed that the 
Prussians had there established an ob- 
servatory for their general staff. " In 
less than six hours," says M. Jules (la- 
retie, in his " History of the Revolution 
of 1870-71," "this palace, which had 
received so many distinguished guests 
:ind seen so many strange fortunes, was 
entirely consumed." M. Claretie is in 
error in lliis statement. The chateau of 
St. Cloud was but partially burned at 
that time, and hundreds upon hundreds 
of shells were fired into it weekly until 
the capitulation in January. 

Around this Palace, and all through 
the Park of St. (loud, as far as Ville 
d'Avray, the fire from the French forts 
was particularly effective, and many a 
stout German was struck down daily by 
the deatii missiles coming from the un- 
seen enemy. On the day before the 
surrender of the forts 1 rode to Ville 
d'Avray, and thence walked through the 
Park of St. Cloud, here and there grop- 
ing my way in the trenches roofed with 
tree-boughs, in which the soldiers had 
then been living for more than two 
months, and came out near the ruins of 
the Palace just as the Crown Prince of 
Prussia, attended by a Staff of forty or 
fifty officers, rode up the hill from the 
banks of the Seine, and turned to look 
at the French sharp-shooters, who were 
very numerous along the other bank, and 
who were making great efforts to inflict 
damage. The position was not, one to 
be chosen for comfort. The shells came 
crashing into the ruins and along the 
trenches every minute. 1 counted four- 
teen which fell in close proximity to the 
staff while the group of horsemen halted 
upon the brow of the hill. The ping of 
the bullets from the French lines was 
incessant; but the Crown Prince, with 
his usual disregard of his own personal 



safety when there was any duly to per- 
form, had ridden alone- the whole avenue 
where the fail' of St. (loud is usually 
held, and had thus, while quite within 
range, exposed himself to the inimical 
bullets of two or three hundred soldiers. 

The palace of St. (loud has never 
been rebuilt. It stands a picturesque 
ft i in in the midst of the exquisite forest, 
and the Republican government, which 
has a sense of the fitness of tilings, has 
repeatedly declined offers from capital- 
ists for its conversion into casinos, crys- 
tal palaces, or gambling-hells. It was 
to this palace that the first Bonaparte 
came after Brumaire ; that the victorious 
Blucher entered after Alma ; from this 
palace that the Empress of tin' French 
returned in haste to perturbed Paris after 
she had heard the news from Sedan ; and 
the ( termans say that the Prince Von Ho- 
henzollern, who had been the innocent 
cause of the whole war, rode up to the 
doors of St. (loud and straight through 
the deserted palace on the day after the 
caging of Napoleon III. at Sedan. 

If was from St. Cloud that Napoleon 
III. announced his intention of declaring 
war against < iermany. 

On the lllh of October the Prussians 
asked lor an armistice to bury their dead ; 
and there was much rejoicing in Paris 
over the fact that the enemy's losses 
were severe. Every night, and generally 
by day, for the next few days, the 
cannon on the walls of Paris roared 
unceasingly, wasting hundreds of thou- 
sands of francs' worth of ammunition, as 
those of us who were outside with the 
besiegers could observe. The principles 
which guided the action of the French 
artillery-men were a mystery to the be- 
siegers. 

During the occupation of Versailles I 
used frequently to ride through that 
town to St. Germain, and at a certain 



306 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



point on the road came out on a bare 
hill-side directly facing St. Cloud. This 
hill-side was not within range, and the 
gunnersof MontValerien imisl have found 
it out at least a month before my fre- 
quent journeys back and forth. But 
they never failed to salute my appear- 
ance, or that of any horseman on that 
point upon the route, with half-a-dozen 
cannon shots, which cost much money, 
and weie not of the slightest avail. 

On the 21st of October a .second sortie 
of importance took place, about twelve 
thousand men, under the orders of Gen- 
eral Ducrot, being engaged in it. It 
was a reconnaissance, but prepared for 
offensive operations. The troops went 
out by Rueil, Buzenval, Bougival, and 
Malmaison. This was a vigorous sortie, 
and was so well kept up at fust that 
there wis a slight panic at Versailles. 
The Germans, for half an hour, were 
occupied with vigorous preparations for 
departure. The French artillery had 
opened a heavy lire on Buzenval and 
Malmaison, and the troops had carried 
the first German positions. But when 
they had turned Malmaison, and gone up 
the slopes of Jonchere, they found the 
enemy ambuscaded in the woods or in 
the houses of the village too strong for 
them. They asserted, with truth, that 
a short time after the announcement of 
the battle, all along the line, even up to 
Montretout, they had a distinct advan- 
tage Tin' Germans lost heavily, the 
Forty-sixth Prussian regiment being quite 
cut to pieces. The Parisians were very 
indignant at the manoeuvres of the Ger- 
mans, who, while standing under a heavy 
fire, threw themselves down in great dis- 
order, as if they were nearly all killed, 
or about to crawl away. This ruse de- 
ceived the French, who dashed forward, 
thinking that they could rush over the 
enemy ; but when they were at three 



hundred paces the Germans arose, and 
poured a. tremendous tire into their 
ranks; and from that time forward the 
sortie was checked. At nightfall Gen- 
eral Ducrot ordered a retreat, and the 
Prussians pursued the retreating French 
with a very disastrous lire. 

The French accounts of the panic at 
Versailles have been but little exagger- 
ated. The Germans began to get ready 
the reserve batteries, which had been 
ranged for more than a month in long 
lines on the Place d'Armes, at Versailles, 
and to station them so that they would 
sweep the avenues of St. Cloud, of Paris, 
and of Sceaux, in case the French troops 
arrived. The gates of the city were 
closed. Von Moltke, it is reported, de- 
stroyed a large number of his papers 
and important despatches, had others 
hastily done up in sheets and towels, 
and ready to be carried off, jumped 
on to a horse, and went out to look at 
the light. It was, probably, his pres- 
ence and the few cool bits of advice 
which he gave on arriving on the scene 
of action which saved the day. In their 
retreat the French lost two cannon, 
which the Fiftieth Prussian infantry took 
from them. 

In the provinces, the army of the 
Loire, which was destined to such a sad 
fate, was by the end of October in fairly 
good condition. There had been a battle 
and a French defeat at Orleans, where 
an army corps composed of Bavarians 
and Prussians under the command of 
General Yon der Tann, and a detach- 
ment of cavalry commanded by Prince 
Albrecht of Prussia, were operating. 
The little town of Chateaudun had made 
a defense so heroic against over- 
whelming numbers that the renown of 
its exploits penetrated into every circle 
in Europe and even won the admiration 
of the enemy. The anniversary of this 



El HOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



307 



defense has become a commemorative fete 
in France, and the " Francs-Tireurs," or 
irregular volunteers, who held this town 
until it was almost burned to ashes, 
against a Prussian division of twelve 
thousand men, with twenty-four pieces 
of artillery, deserve to rank beside the 
heroes of the Alamo. 

Chateaudun was pillaged first and 
burned afterwards by the angry enemy, 
which had not seen any such resistance 
since it had entered the country. The 
German accounts of the bombardment 
and sacking of the town furnish sufficient 
accusation against the victors, who, in 
this case, abused their power. A 
statement in the official journal of 
Berlin shortly after the affair thus 
describes the condition of the town of 
Chateaudun : " Demolished walls, over- 
turned gateways, and pierced roofs make 
the streets nearly impassable. The 
church itself has been almost destroyed 
by shells; immense blocks of stone are 
torn from its wall ; the tiles are scattered 
like leaves in a forest ; and a grenade 
has blown the belfry half away. Entire 
streets were in flames when the troops 
entered. The extent of the conflagration 
and the violence of the storm of wind 
which carried the flames hither and yon 
rendered any idea of extinguishing the 
fire impracticable. There was scarcely 
a decent room to be had in the town for 
Prince Albrecht and the commanders of 



his division. The officers bivouacked 
with the troops in the open air. During 
the engagement of the previous night 
the French had neglected their wounded, 
a great number of whom remained in the 
streets, and were burned alive. On the 
morning of the 20th, at five o'clock, the 
Prussian division took up its inarch 
again. The flames which still came 
from the ruins were so strong that they 
lit up the horizon as clearly as if it 
were day." 

Chateaudun thus became celebrated in 
French annals. The government issued 
in its favor the customary decree : 
" Chateaudun has merited well of the 
country." Paris named one of its 
streets after the unhappy town. Victor 
Hugo, when some huge cannon were 
going on to the fortifications, demanded 
that one of them should be called 
Chateaudun. 

St. Quentin, in the north, had also 
made an heroic resistance. The period 
of hopefulness was not yet over, but it 
was greatly clouded by the unfortunate 
termination of the brilliant affair at Le 
Bourget, by the announcement of the 
fall of Metz, by the government's de- 
termination to propose an armistice, and 
by the Communistic insurrection of the 
31st of October, when Paris seemed 
to escape civil war by nothing less 
than the interposition of Providence. 



308 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER. THIRTY-TWO. 



The Sic^c of Met/.. — Its Tragedies and its Humors. — Steinmetz Ihc Terrible. Bazamc's Curious Indeci- 
sion.- -Tin Guerilla Warfare around tlic Fortress.- -The Poisoned Wells Legend. — Starving th< 
Citizens. — The Odor of Death. — General t lhangarnier's Mission. 



XN the north-western part of that 
picturesque and rich department of 
France known as the Moselle stands an 
almost impregnable fortress, winch for 
seventy days occupied the attention of 
the whole civilized world. The battles 
which were fought near its walls were 
such as were never seen upon the windy 
plains of Troy, — battles which cling in 
the memory like a hideous nightmare, 
redeemed here and there by some act of 
purifying heroism, some sublime example 
of duty and faith and patience. One 
hundred and seventy-three thousand 
men at last surrendered there to barely 
two hundred thousand, and the shame- 
ful campaign seemed at its climax. 
Bazaine had stained Ins name with igno- 
miny ; and Canrobert, whether or not he 
were culpable, was at last doomed to do 
penance for being so lone; in bad com- 
pany. These two were most efficient 
witnesses to the truth of the assertion 
that the Empire was not able to raise up 
men to protect France. The stronghold 
of the country, the much-coveted gate, 
was unlocked ; and who now could check 
the descendants of the Brandenburg 
pirates? Not even the army of the Loire, 
not even Garibaldi, nor yet the liery, un- 
tamed Gambetta, seemed able to stay 
the avenging hand which had been 
stretched over France. 

The Germans were wont to say that 
Metz was the sortie gate for France, as 
indeed it might have been to Prussia's 
humiliation, had Napoleon spent in or- 



ganizing foreign expeditions oue-half of 

the time he had given to the protection 
of himself from his own enraged country- 
men. The Romans, with their rare eyes. 
found .Mel/, a stronghold of strongholds, 
and named it Divodorum. Here the Me- 
diomatrici, a powerful anil warlike tribe, 
then lived, and from the corruption of 
various dialects in pronouncing their 
name finally arose the sobriquet of 
Met/.. In 452 the Huns destroyed the 
town ; hut as this was before it had risen 
to a walled fortress, the Metzers boast 
that it never litis been " taken." It is 

i '• tin' north-eastern Franco-Prussian 

frontier, and the country around is strik- 
ingly beautiful. The Prussian soldiers, 
who could not lie hindered from pausing 
to admire nature's beauties, even when 
they were making their first memorable 
march into Austria, in 1866, must have 
lingered often by the way when ap- 
proaching the environs of Metz. The 
city, set down in front of ti noble back- 
ground formed by lulls tinged with brill- 
iant colors and crowned with thick 
forests, the great spires of the Cathedral 
looming high in air. and to the front 
the fertile plains, with the silver threads 
of the Moselle and Seille winding 
through them, make a perfect picture. 
The heavy masonry, the castellated 
towers of the Port.' des Allemands, and 
the huge elbow of the ramparts, which 
projected into the Mosenthal, — the Mo- 
selle valley, — reminded every approach- 
ing visitor that Met/, was eminently a 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



309 



fortress town. West and north-west 
led away i.he two roads on which the 
terrible battles of the 14th, 16th, and 18th 
of August, 1870, were fought ; and near 
by are the heights which were stormed 
at such dreadful cost. The villages in 
the vicinity are, with rare exceptions, 
miserably poor. The farmers give more 
attention to their fields than to their 
homes, and there is small evidence of 
culture of the grace of hospitality. 

Metz was the capital of Lorraine even 
as early as the time of Clovis, the first 
of the French kings. It was later a free 
city, called Imperial. In the 11th cen- 
tury it was German, and remained so 
until 1048, when it became French by 
the Treaty of Westphalia. The fortress 
was begun in the ICtli century, by the 
Chevalier de Yille, and constant improve- 
ments have been made since that time. 
The Germans are pounding away at it 
even now, and they have metamorphosed 
the names of streets and ramparts, forts 
and gateways, in the same manner as at 
Strasbourg. Vanban strengthened and 
enlarged the work. The model of the 
fortress was one of the treasures of a 
military museum at Paris, was taken 
by the allies in 1815, and is now pre- 
served in Berlin. The city stands on 
the right bank of the Moselle, at a point 
where the river is about two hundred 
paces wide. The Moselle and the Seille 
are crossed by seventeen bridges, few of 
which are architecturally fine. There 
are seven gates in the walls, all im- 
mensely thick and strong. 

In 18GG France began hastily to in- 
crease the strength of Metz ; but the 
Germans must have smiled in their 
sleeves as they reflected that this pre- 
caution came too late. Germany made 
no distinct claim on Metz as upon Stras- 
bourg ; but the Germans recall with 
pride the fact that German arms are 



still to be found on the chapel and in the 
Place Napoleon, as it was called at 
the time of the war. There are three 
islands in the river, — St. Symphorien, 
Sauley, and Chambiere. On the east, 
at some distance from the city, stands 
the great fort of Belle Croix, renamed 
by the Germans ; and to the west the 
bridges were guarded by Fort Moselle. 
Here also was an entrenched camp, ca- 
pable of containing many thousands of 
men. The outermost fort was perhaps 
a mile from the city proper, and the cir- 
cumference of the whole work was about 
six miles. Metz was most; important as 
an arsenal town, having for many years 
contained the principal stores of weapons 
in France. Its hospitals were also the 
finest outside Paris, and its manufacto- 
ries of cloths, woollen wares, needles, etc., 
are still celebrated in both hemispheres. 

The trade' between Metz and all parts 
of Germany was always extremely brisk, 
and its interruption was not, one of tha 
lightest burdens of the war. Many of the 
old churches date from the twelfth cen- 
tury. St. Stephen's cathedral is remark- 
able for the beauty of its stained-glass 
windows. At the outbreak of the war 
the town was undoubtedly French in 
spirit. The fairest German writers admit 
this. 

One morning Marshal Bazaine, ser- 
vitor of the Empire ami Mexican specu- 
lator, found that formidable forces had 
hemmed him in on every side, as the 
result of the five days' lights, the ter- 
rible encounters at Mars la-Tour, at 
Gravelottc, and Borny, of those sangui- 
nary events which led to the catastrophe 
of Sedan. Bazaine and his men dis- 
covered thai Metz was really invested ; 
that the enemy lay perdu all around 
them ; but no one could discover why 
Bazaine chose to remain besieged when 
he might, with a great army, have east 



310 



Mil HOP]-: IN STORM AND CALM. 



his fortune upon the adventure of a few 
hours and tried to cut his way out. The 
Prussians harried him night and day, 
and wearied his broken soldiery very 
badly. Meantime General Steinmetz 
had been removed from the important 
pest which lie had for srmie time held 

in tin' Prussian army, because the ven- 
erable King of Prussia had declared that 
lie would not always have bloodshed the 
only means of arriving at position. The 
dashing veteran general, a compound of 
Blucher and Sheridan, had won great 
praise by the rapidity, not to say reck- 
lessness, of his movements in August, 
lie had begun that chain of battles 
which resulted so favorably to the Prus- 
sian armies by crossing the Moselle and 
advancing under the gates of Metz. Hut 
it so happened that he had disobeyed the 
positive orders of his commander, — to 
pass over the Moselle on the south side in- 
stead of the north. It was claimed that 
a great sacrifice of life in the Seventh and 
Eighth ( terman army corps was due to this 
disobedience of orders, as, by the move- 
ment commanded, Steinmetz would have 
avoided the French positions near Mos- 
cow and St. Hubert, and the Germans 
would have had the advantage of higher 
ground than their enemies. It is also 
argued that Bazaine's return to Metz on 
the morning of the 19th of August would 
have been impossible. So, although the 

aged General Steinmetz won an almost 
incredible victory at Borny, he was rep- 
rimanded very severely by the King, 
who scowled upon him as Washington 
did upon Lee at Monmouth. Steinmetz 

received the rebuke ill grim silence, and 

evidently did not appreciate it. The 
King then ordered him to report to Prince' 
Friederich Karl, which made him very 
angry, and his relations soon became so 
bail with that general that he was re- 
called, and made Governor of a Prussian 



province. The soldiers in front of Metz 
regretted this movement, and it is an 
open secret thai there was much sulki- 
ness and even incipient mutiny for a 
short time ; but it was soon forgotten 
amidst stronger excitements. 

Prince Friederich Karl, now made com- 
manding-general in front of Metz, estab- 
lished his head-quarters at Doncourt, to 
which point the ••Battle of the live 
days" had extended; and there, while 
suffering from a tedious illness produced 
by excessive labor, he carried on his be- 
sieging operations. Nearly a quarter of 
a million men were stationed round about 
the fortress, and holding atbay, as it were, 
a well-provisioned, healthy, and reason- 
ably resolute army of nearly two hun- 
dred thousand men. Three marshals of 
the French Empire were also imprisoned 
in this living ring. From time to time 
rumors of brilliant attempts on the 
part of these greal marshals to cut their 
way through the Prussians reached the 
besieged residents of Paris. But the 
ring was never cut. 

Bazaine gave plenty of advice to his 
men. He was always a good talker. 
An ex-confederate, who had met him in 
Mexico, once said to me of Bazaine : 
" C'est mi eauseur adorable quand il a 
deux verres de Cognac dans le ventre." 
But of real knowledge he had little ; and 
his geographical acquirements were ridic- 
ulously small. lie told his men in Metz 
how to get out of the position into which 
he seemed to have forced them. lie 
said, '•You must be constantly on the 
alert to harass (he enemy. lie must 
have no rest. With a few biscuits and 
a great many cartridges, you must creep 
upon him at all hours, and shoot at him 
from all positions. Offensive reconnoi- 
tring must be your strong point. This 
must be done by columns, which can 
never get seriously injured. Very soon 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



311 



you will know the enemy's positions. 
You will keep up your own good-humor 
by constant adventures against him, and 
you will eventually be able to get pro- 
visions, and even cannon. You must 
never be long away from camp. Your 
pickets must be on the qui-vive. You 
must live, eat, hope, and dream on a 
battle-field for, God knows, how many 
weeks and months yet." In conclusion 
he said, on one occasion, "A most im- 
portant thing is to win as much time as 
possible, for here, as in England, time is 
money." 

In view of Bazaine's utter failure in 
Metz how suspicious does this twaddling 
advice sound ! It is not difficult to be- 
lieve the accusation so often brought 
against him after the fall of the Empire, 
that he was a traitor, and that he had 
deliberately made up his mind to sacri- 
fice his army rather than to strike a 
blow which should profit the newly born 
Republic. 

Skirmishes and reconnaissances wei'e 
frequent enough in front of the old town 
from Aug. 20 until late in September. 
A column of Argus-eyed Frenchmen, 
hard-headed old boys, wary as Indians, 
could any morning be seen filing out of 
the gate of the city, the watchful ser- 
geant at the head frowning if a man 
stepped on a twig. These little parties 
would fall suddenly upon a German out- 
post, spread an alarm along the line, 
back, burn, plunder, and destroy, and 
sweep back again under cover of the 
forts. Then would come a retaliatory 
charge of Uhlans ; but these generally 
left their bodies to repose in French soil. 
for there were sharp-shooters every- 
where, and it was unsafe some mornings 
for the Germans even to go a few steps 
outside the place of their encampment. 
Death came on wings, and lighted even 
into places apparently most secure. 



Men were found dead in spots where it 
seemed as if no enemy and no enemy's 
bullet could have penetrated. The ven- 
detta of Metz began to have grave 
terrors for the bravest. 

The Germans had excellent facilities 
for observing the condition of the town, 
but they could not forewarn troops 
against these perpetual sorites. Up to 
the 30th of August it seemed to the 
French as if Bazaine were still making 
efforts to free himself from the inimical 
ring into which he had voluntarily re- 
tired; and, just before the surrender of 
Sedan, the army of Metz gave the be- 
sieging armies a severe shock, and, for 
a few hours, seemed certain of victory. 
This was the fight in which a German 
division was so severely cut up that a, 
wail went out throughout all Germany. 
The losses on the German side were the 
most tremendous of the war. Extra 
efforts were at once made for the reduc- 
tion of the town after this little experi- 
ence. The Germans wire very strongly 
entrenched, but now hastened to make 
their position stronger, and began to 
imitate the French plan of constant 
sorties. The Moselle valley rang with 
the clash of arms. The Germans were 
sometimes surprised at breakfast, and 
mown down before they could wink. 
But this only happened when the out- 
posts were kidnapped and carried away 
without noise. Little by little, however, 
the endeavors of Bazaine himself to 
promote sorties became less conspicuous ; 
but the imprisoned defenders rebelled 
against the policy of inaction, and so all 
round the vast lines the annoying rushes 
and the mysterious murders went on. 
On the east lay the German troops which 
had been under Steinmetz's command, 
— the First and Seventh army corps ; on 
the south and west, the Guards, and the 
Second, Third, Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, 



312 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 



Tenth, and Eleventh army corps ; the 
Saxon corps, the Twelfth, guarded the 
north. 

There was, say the German accounts 
of the siege, at this time, a heavy, moist 
odor of death in the air night and day. 
It came from the hastily buried dead. 
The men threatened to mutiny on both 
sides after the battle of lioruv, because 
the\ were not allowed to bury the fast- 
decaying horses, which had been left 
uncovered, and which were breeding a 
plague. But there was only time to 
throw a thin covering of earth over them. 
As for soldiers who were killed a.t Metz 
during' the siege, in most cases their 
graves were dug but a foot deep, and, 
in many instances, the feet and the hands 
were left sticking out of the ground. 
The market tenders, as the sutlers are 
caller] in the German army, observing 
that the troops drank more while this 
horrible smell endured, used numerous 
efforts to prevent them from burying the 
bodies, and even invented false alarms 
to divert burial parties from their work. 
This statement, was seriously made in 
letters written to Germany from the 
camps of the besiegers. A few sutlers 
being shot, however, by order of the 
commanders, this kind of enterprise was 
checked. Dysentery came to rage in 
the cam]). Prince Friederich Karl was 
struck down with the disease, and his 
death was announced many times. 
Meantime Sedan had become known to 
all the world save to the besieged, and 
it was not long before the sinister news 
cot through the German lines, and de- 
termined Bazaine upon his sinful policy. 

The French forts kept up an aston- 
ishingly brisk tire, slaughtering a few 
men every day at an immense cost of 
shot and shell, which justified the old 
proverb that it takes a ton of iron to 
kill a man. Forts Quelan, Quentin, 



Moselle, and all the other dogs of war 
barked constantly. Sometimes a Ger- 
man soldier on picket duty at the 
entrance of a little village was blown to 
pieces, and little was found to signify 
that he had not deserted his post save a 
gun, a helmet, or a. glove. Patrols and 
pickets became so used to dodging 
death that they invented nicknames for 
the expedients they were obliged to 
pursue. So the slow weeks passed. 
Then came the sharp lighting at Mercy - 
le-Haut, south-east of Metz; and grad- 
ually September waned without results 
on either side. The Prussians found it 
difficult to get enough to eat, and both 
besiegers and besieged fell upon captured 
knapsacks and shook out of them the 
pieces of bread which they contained 
with the eagerness of starvation. But 
Germany began to send up provision- 
trains full of love gifts. October 
arrived. The besieging troops heard 
that the King and the Crown Prince 
were in front of Paris. One or two 
more disastrous collisions, — disastrous 
to both sides, — and the, siege entered 
upon its final phase, that of sullen en- 
durance of privation by the invader 
and the invaded. 

The German soldiers, during their long 
stay in front of Metz, contented them- 
selves with simple diversions. They 
carved on many a wooden cross, piously 
erected above the grave of fallen com- 
rades, the oldGerman military legend : — 

Drei Salven gibt man mir. 

Ins Knlile grab hinein, 
]>as ist Soldaten manitr — 
Weilsie all zeit lustig sein. 

Some inscriptions had a rough humor 
in them, recounting the exploits of 
heroes in the same manner that an 
Indian chief might recite the number of 
his slain. But these of course were only 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



313 



temporary ; no trace of them can be 
found to-day. 

Here is the menu of a cook attached 
to the first company of the First Rhenish 
Jager Battalion : — 

Menu 17tii September to Octobei: 1st. 
At sunrise : 

Coffee without milk. Chassepot bullets in 
the earth-works. 

At noon : 
Dessert after dinner, — distant roaring of 
cannon from Fort Quentin. Grand concert, 
immediate neighborhood hot. Beginning of 
symphony serves to hasten meals and assist 
digestion. 

Evening : 
Black-bread for supper. Spectacle, — burning 
villages smoking to all corners of the heavens, 
and St. Qucntin's guns shying shot at the em- 
bankments until midnight. 

Dancing : 
Towards the enemy's works through wood 
and meadow until daylight, when the murder of 
patrol parties begins as usual. 

The camp literature was sometimes 
exceedingly good. There were seven 
German poets killed before Metz, and, 
in the battles which preceded the actual 
siege, a gentleman who had made a fine 
translation of Longfellow's ' ( Hiawatha " 
fell to rise no more. A Sanscrit scholar 
sent home a report of an action in which 
he was engaged written in Sanscrit. 
In his regiment there were three others 
proficient in that tongue. Out of the 
German bodies of soldiery might any 
day have stepped one hundred accom- 
plished linguists, as out of the Massa- 
chusetts regiment during the Rebellion 
stepped at call a hundred men, eaeli of 
whom could construct a locomotive. 

Some rather complaining Prussian 
pickets, one day having expressed dis- 



appointment because much-needed food 
had not come to hand, were taken by a. 
number of their comrades to a neigh- 
boring village, where they were informed 
that provisions carried off from the 
French were stored. The greedy and 
half-starved fellows rushed into a room 
where they discovered nothing but huge 
piles of splinters of French shells. Of 
these they were coolly invited to partake ; 
and thenceforward they complained no 
more. 

Within Metz they were not given to 
joking, but to serious endeavors to live. 
The locust armies were rapidly eating the 
citizens out of house and home. On the 
13th of October, nearly ten days after 
Paris had done a similar thing, the com- 
mandant issued the following order con- 
cerning bread : — 

From Thursday, October 10, only one kind 
of breail will be baked — made from corn. 
This bread costs nine sous for two pounds. 
Every baker will receive from this day forward 
flour enough to supply the district which be 
serves. The daily portion for every inhabitant 
of the city is established at four hundred 
grammes for an adult, two hundred grammes 
for a child, and one hundred grammes for in- 
fants under four. A baker can furnish bread 
oidy to those who have a paper from the mayor ; 
and no one can receive more than the regular 
portions. 

This arrangement met with universal 
favor so long as the corn lasted ; but corn 
began gradually to give out ; and when 
Bazaine capitulated, there was neither 
bread nor salt to be found in his whole 
army nor in the town. Expedients for 
food were of the most astonishing nature. 
Men and women constantly came to the 
commandant with propositions for the 
manufacture of articles miraculous in 
their sustaining power, and by which the 
whole army and the honor of France 
could be saved. But the very materials 



314 



EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 



with which to make these substances 
were lacking. The horses that were 
killed had been themselves so long with- 
out proper food and attention that the 
little flesh remaining upon their bones 
afforded small nourishment. Early in 
October this horse-meat became the only 
flesh available. The faces of the men 
began to show their sufferings, and the 
scurvy manifested itself here and there. 
The Germans were even moved t<> tears 
by the exhibition of mingled pride and 
greed given by French prisoners occa- 
sionally brought into camp. Now it was 
a slight but wiry chasseur, who could not 
refrain from tilling the pockets of his 
baggj trousers with bread and salt, that 
he might luxuriate in these, to him. un- 
wonted blessings; and now a gigantic 
cuirassier, who ate enough to have main- 
tained a squadron, but who proudly stated 
the fact that there was no hunger in 
Met/.. 'Hie French officers, who came 
as parlementaires to arrange some truce 
for purposes necessary to both sides, 
always proudly refused any invitations 
to dinner. The great hospitals at Met/, 
were overcrowded with sick and wounded, 
and there was fear of pestilence ill them. 
The Bridge of the Dead, over the Moselle, 
had a new meaning in its name ; so 
many sorrowful processions had gone out 
over it day by day to bury their comrades 
in the fields beyond. When the Em- 
peror Napoleon was leaving Metz he 
shook his head as the driver asked him 
if he should go over the Bridge of (lie 
Dead, and told him to take the one next 
below it. By the river-side stood a little 
child as the Imperial cortege passed on its 
runaway course, and the voice of that 
child was the only one in the town which 
cried " Vivel'Empereur!" But the Em- 
peror touched his hat with the same dig- 
nity that he would have shown in saluting 
an immense crowd. 



German soldiers had many privations 
to undergo which were unknown to the 
French. The Lorraine peasantry were 
tilled with the bitterest hatred for their 
conquerors, and many a picket lost his 
life through the poisoning of the wells in 
his neighborhood. So musketeers were 
posted at every well and brook from 
Saiirbrucken to Met/., and all around the 
besieged city ; and whenever a peasant 
was found near a well he was made to 
drink from it, to prove that he had not 
been poisoning it. Notices were also 
posted announcing that if a peasant be- 
longing to any village in the surrounding 
country was found to have attempted 
treachery against the troops, a number 
of the inhabitants of that village would 
be shot. On one occasion the Mayor of 
a little town was brought before a Ger- 
man officer, charged with having been 
seen to put something into a well. lie 
was dragged to it and made to drink re- 
peatedly from it. As he approached it. 
he staggered, and turned pale from excite- 
ment, not from guilt. In an instant 
a hundred guns were levelled at his 
breast, and he would have been shot to 
pieces had he not recovered himself and 
been able to demonstrate that the well- 
water was still pure. The peasants were 
in the habit of denying that they had 
grain or food of any kind when foraging 
parties visited them. After a time this 
enraged the Prussians, who bmned the 
houses of refractory fanners, and there- 
after everything was at their disposal, 
threat stores of grain were sometimes 
found hidden in the most ingenious 
manner, and considerable sums of money 
buried in the earth by owners who had 
tied away were brought to light. But 
these were never appropriated, the gen- 
eral orders of each day making it the 
duty of every soldier to report things 
found at head-quarters. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



315 



The burning of villages seems to have 
been very common ; and yet no good 
reason could be assigned for it. Visiting 
Metz just after the siege one. often came 
upon blackened heaps of cinders running 
in two long parallel lines iu beautiful 
fields bordered by poplars. These sin- 
ister relics denoted the site of some 
hamlet which had met with the rude 
fortune of war. 

The majority of the frontier villages 
were composed of low, one-story cottages, 
built on each side of a long street. 
There was but little variety in the archi- 
tecture, and the public buildings were 
few and dingy. In ordinary times the 
notable figures of these little commu- 
nities were the priest, the mayor, 
one of the gorgeous country police, a 
rich farmer or two, fat, churlish, and 
wearing huge blue blouses over their 
broad cloth coats and their capacious 
waistcoats. 

But on the avenues of these frontier 
towns, after the siege, there were no 
signs of country prosperity, nothing but 
a few sentinels lazily strolling up and 
down, a spy being conveyed in a cart to 
the place of his trial, a few women 
brooding over the loss of husband or 
home, or a squadron of cavalry ridiug 



through to inquire if anything could be 
had to eat. 

One day, old General Changarnier, 
weak and trembling with his age and 
fatigues, went to see Prince Friederich 
Karl at Doncourt. To this step — a 
most humiliating one — the condition of 
Bazaine and the Metz army had driven 
him. Bazaine, generally reserved and 
frosty in his manner, hailed Changar- 
nier's proposition with much delight. 
Such humiliations were mere prelimina- 
ries. The commander of Metz was 
indeed full of gloomy forebodings, and 
since the declaration of the Republic had 
been confirmed he had not scrupled to 
say that the fortress was lost. He had 
seen the declaration of the Emperor's 
fall received with acclamations by many 
of his own men. Desertions began ; 
men stricken with fever, men whose 
scrawny limbs trembled under them, and 
who loathed the sight of the unwholesome 
food given them, went boldly into the 
enemy's camp and asked for protection 
and provisions in exchange for their 
liberty and their arms. The German 
prisoners brought into Metz were accus- 
tomed to taunt the men with stories 
about the well-fed prisoners and de- 
serters in the German lines. 



;i(i 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER TIHRTY-TIIKEE. 



The Surrender of Metz. -The Suspicious Natuvo of] 
Imperialists. — The Allan- of the Flags. — The 



lazainc's Negotiations. — The Envoy from the Fallen 
Prisoners in Front of Metz, and in Camps in Cicr- 



r>. ENERAL CHANGARNIER found 

\-A Friederieb Karl sullen, angrj, and 
not over-polite. To tell the truth, this 
warrior's temper had been spoiled by the 
fact that he had been compelled to stay, 
as it were, on the outskirts of Franco, 
when he wished to have been Hying 
through the country, terrifying a new 
city every day. sleeping in the saddle, 
living on a crust for a week, making 
forced marches, etc. He adored hard- 
ships, but he wished to confront them 
in the midst of stronger excitements than 

those of a .siege. 

So lie had but few words of comfort 
for, and asked many exactions from, 
Changarnier. The old general went 
back sick at heart, murmuring that the 
Prince had maltreated him. and said no 
moie. lie had given up the campaign. 

.lust outside the range of the shells 
from Fort Quentin stood the beautiful 
chdteauoi Frascati, deserted by its owner 
at an early stage of the siege. The 
Pomeranians were posted there, and the 
weary watchers in Metz nightly heard 
them roar their northern songs. These 
same Pomeranians were the rough-and- 
ready fellows who went post-haste across 
the country when their work was done 
at Metz to plunge into the southern cam- 
paign. The chdteau, surrounded by one 
of the finest parka in France, had long 
been the glorv of the suburbs of Met/., 
and to-day is one of the most interesting 
of European castles, for there the great- 
est capitulation of modern times was 



signed. There the man who had shown 
such astonishing indecision that he was 
suspected even I > v his fellow-Imperialists, 
long before bis policy had become plain, 
of wishing to deliver his army into the 
bands of the < lermans,gave up his prison- 
ers, — sixty-seven regiments of infan 
try, and thirteen battalions of chasseurs, 
of which there were ten regiments of 
cuirassiers, one Guidon regiment, eleven 
of dragoons, two of lancers and three 
of hussars, six of chasseurs, three of 
CJiassenrs d'Afrique, and six garrison 
squadrons, as well as one hundred and 
fifteen field batteries r.nd seventeen bat- 
teries of the famous mitrailleuse, which 
was, by the way, a complete failure in the 
Held. The army of Bazaine had originally 
two hundred ami twenty-one battalions, 
the garrison of Metz, consisting of eigh- 
teen battalions, and one hundred and 
sixty-two squadrons, the guard of the 
Grenadier regiments, three cavalry regi- 
ments, a guard of the lancers, a guard of 
chasseurs and the Chasseur* d'Afrique, 
but some of these latter constituted the 
personal guard of the Emperor, and had 
left Metz witli him. They, with the Cent 
Gardes, were included in the Sedan capitu- 
lation. Bazaine had at first two hundred 
and ten thousand able men ; but when the 
time of capitulation came he had thirty- 
six thousand sick and wounded on his 
hands. 

Right glad were the German troops 
when they heard that surrender was cer- 
tain, for they had had enough of extent' 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



317 



pore living. A soldier, writing a day 
or two before Changarnier's attempt to 
treat with Prince Friederieh Karl, said, 
" We are seeing hard times, but exercis- 
ing and dress are attended to just as if 
we were in a garrison. My quarters are 
in a hay-loft, where I have provided for 
my comfort as best I can. For food 
we have biscuit and bacon only. My 
elothes-brush serves my company as boot, 
tooth, rifle, nail, and garment cleaner. 
Our handkerchiefs are used as coffee- 
strainers, bandages, and neck-cloths al- 
ternately. Mantles serve as table-cloths, 
swords as beefsteak choppers, their hilts 
as coffee-mills and hard-tack breakers." 
The journals of the besieged town, 
printed on paper of all colors, — choco- 
late, gray, and brown, — had evidently 
given the inhabitants and the army but 
small hope. One ami all spoke very dis- 
couraginglyof the condition of the French 
provinces. They also announced, on the 
25th of October, that the raw weather 
had caused the death of immense num- 
bers of horses, and that a great party 
among the inhabitants was German in 
demanding peace. "The only nourish- 
ment now in the town," sadly recorded 
one paper, " is salt meat and fresh 
water." 

Old General Changarnier only went 
out on his mission to the Germans after 
urgent solicitation on the part of his 
comrades, aud not until Bazaine had 
been urged to attempt an escape with a 
part of his army in the direction of 
Gravelotte. "Even if you do not es- 
cape," urged the generals, " and if we 
are made prisoners, we shall save the 
garrison and the fortress by giving them 
a little more time." But Bazaine 
would not hear of this, aud so old Gen- 
eral Changarnier went blindfolded to 
the Chateau Fraseati. When he came 
back to Metz, after an interview of an 



hour and a half with the Prussian com- 
mander, his aged frame trembled and 
tears streamed down his face lie said, 
"Gentlemen, we must fall, but with honor. 
I hope that you and your brave soldiers 
may never experience such anguish as 1 
have felt." On his way back, after lie 
was in the French lines, he saw some 
soldiers groping for potatoes in the 
fields, and stopped to tell them that the 
Germans were splendid antagonists, and 
that they must show their best qualities 
against such an enemy. 

So, on the 27th October, Prince Fried- 
erieh Karl came down to the Chateau 
Fraseati to be near at hand for a. con- 
sultation. A French division-general 
represented Bazaine. and General Von 
Stiehle, the Prussian army. Thearticles 
were signed, after a severe struggle, about 
eleven o'clock at night. The King sent 
to request the French otticers to retain 
their swords. Food was at once sent for- 
ward to the town, and the German soldiers 
heard much shouting, as of men begging 
and hustling about the provision carts, 
until early dawn. And so it came to 
pass, that in October Germany had as 
prisoners within her boundary one hun- 
dred and forty-eight French generals, 
six thousand officers, and three bundled 
and twenty-three thousand men of rank 
aud file ; while as yet France had taken 
but two thousand one hundred Germans 
as prisoners of war. 

So it happened that, in the dullest of 
weather, with death iu their hearts, and 
with very little food in their stomachs, 
the Imperial Guards, which had marched 
out of Paris scarcely three months lie- 
fore to the sound of inspiring music, on 
the beginning of their triumphal march 
to Berlin, defiled through the great for- 
tress gate and past Prince Friederieh Karl 
and his generals assembled. 

So it happened, that the dreary pro- 



318 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



cession began, one army, conquered, de- 
filing past another but little larger than 
itself. 

So it happened, that the marvellous 
German railway organization came once 
more into play. All civil trains on the 
Baden and Palatinate routes were sus- 
pended, and ten thousand Frenchmen, 
daily, were expressed into Germany, 
with the same precision and skill with 
which the Teutonic troops were sent upon 
to the French frontier a little while pre- 
vious. The French marshals, Bazaine, 
Canrobert, and Le Boeuf, were sent on to 
Cassel, to tell the story to their captive 
Emperor; and the German press of the 
day recorded, with a grim satire, that in 
the French marshals' train were twenty 
thousand pounds of luggage. 

So it happened, that the Crown Prince 
and Prince Friederich Karl got to be 
marshals, and Yon Moltke became a 
count; that long trains of food from 
England, from Belgium, from the Rhine, 
were hurried through the bal tie-stricken 
country to relieve the starving people 
in Metz ; that the Pomeranians took up 
their tremendous line of march to the 
south ; that a flaming farewell order was 
issued by the German commander to 
those veterans who did not go on farther 
into the campaign ; that the peasants 
stole out from wood and down from 
mountain to resume their work ; that the 
ploughshares now and then probed a 
grave so new that it was horrible; that 
tin- dull battle stench for miles around 
gradually went away ; and that by night 
the fields ech 1 no longer to the scream- 
ing of shells and the rattle of musketry 
Bre, hut to cheery German soldier 
songs. 

Many wonderful military events in the 
history of France and Prussia have oc- 
curred in this same sinister October. 
In 1800, in October, the victorious Em- 



peror, Napoleon the Great, stood before 
the grave of Frederick, at Potsdam; 
in October, 1812, was the Battle of 
Leipsie ; October, 1815, saw Napoleon 
I. at St, Helena; October, 1830, saw 
Louis Napoleon's attempt to proclaim 
himself Emperor at Strasbourg; Octo- 
ber, 1840, saw him sentenced to impris- 
onment; and October, 1871, brought 
the capitulation of Metz. and the coro- 
nation of King William of Prussia as 
Emperor of United Germany and Con- 
queror of Fiance at Versailles. It was 
also in October, in that wild year 1552, 
that Henry II. sent his army to seize 
upon Metz, Troves, and Verdun, while 
Charles V. was troubled with religious 
wars in Germany. Up came the fiery 
Emperor with a tremendous army at his 
hack, when he heard that the French 
were in the Trois-Eveehes ; and down 
he sat before Metz and began his opera- 
tions with a formidable park of cavalry 
for those days. But lie went away in 
the winter of 1553, leaving his tents 
behind him, convinced that he could not 
overcome the valor of Francois de ( iuise ; 
and so great was his anger and humilia- 
tion that he cried out: "I see, now, 
that Fortune is indeed a woman. She 
favors the young and disdains the old." 
Bazaine, and all the members of the 
Imperial Party, have insisted, ever since 
the trial of the unlucky Marshal in 
187.'5, that he was the victim of circum- 
stances ; that the French, horror-stricken 
and humiliated by the crushing series of 
defeats which had come upon them, felt 
it necessary to assert that they were be- 
trayed, and hurled all the fury of their 
accusation upon the soldier who was in 
command of the head-quarters-genera] 
of the army. French pride was indeed 
more bitterly hurt by the surrender of 
Metz than by any other event of the 
war. That the town around which so 



EUHOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



319 



many glorious remembrances clustered, 
and which had been associated with so 
many striking events in French history. 
could have been handed over without a 
final valorous effort for its relief seems 
incomprehensible, unless its commander 
were influenced by unworthy motives. 
It seems clear — reviewing with the 
utmost impartiality the course of Marshal 
Bazaine from the 12th of August. 1870, 
the day on which he took into his hands 
the chief command of the army of the 
Rhine, up to the evening of the 27th 
of October, when the capitulation was 
signed — that Bazaine did not do his 
duty. Whether it was because he 
desired for a consideration to betray the 
immense army under his leadership to 
the Germans, or hoped that the forces 
of the broken French Empire might rally, 
and that he might, by some clever com- 
bination, contribute to the weakness of 
the Republic, and help to restore the 
Imperial throne, the world will probably 
never know. His conduct, whatever 
might have been its motive, was pitia- 
ble. He might, by joining forces with 
MacMahon in the closing days of 
August, have prevented the disaster of 
Sedan ; and, in response to the pressing- 
despatches which were sent him, urging 
him to be ready to affect the junction, 
he responded only by puerile excuses. 
At one time he said that he could not 
move because of lacking ammunition ; 
and, on that very day, in curious illus- 
tration of the absolute disorganization 
of the army, four millions of cartridges, 
the very existence of which in the ar- 
senal had been ignored up to that time 
by the general commanding the place, 
were discovered. To all the appeals for 
the powerful aid which his well-disci- 
plined and vigorous army could have 
given, his only answer was, that the army 
ought to remain under the walls of Metz, 



because it thus gave to France the time 
to organize resistance, and to the armies 
in course of formation time to be brought 
together. 

That he was unpatriotic and partisan 
seems clearly proven. On the 2yd of 
September, a Prussian parlementaire 
presented himself at the French picket 
line, bearing a letter from Friederich 
Karl for Marshal Bazaine. A little 
behind him was a man on foot, with a 
white poeket-handerchief tied to the end 
of a stick. The Prussian parlementaire 
delivered his letter, and was about to 
ride away, when the French officer who 
had come out to meet him said, •• Who is 
this man with you?" — -'He is not with 
me, and I do not know him," replied the 
Prussian officer, galloping off. The indi- 
vidual then declared that he had a mis- 
sion for Marshal Bazaine, and wished 
to speak with him at once. So he was 
brought into the lines. When he reached 
tin' town the French officer who was con- 
dueling him asked him whom he should 
announce to the Marshal. "You may 
say that it is an envoy from Hastings," 
was the answer. It was at Hastings 
that the Empress Eugenie had taken 
refuge after her flight from Paris. 
Marshal Bazaine at once received this 
person, whose name was Regnier, into 
his private office ; and there, according 
to testimony furnished at the trial of 
Bazaine, Regnier declared that he had 
come to propose either to Marshal Can- 
robert or to General Bourbaki to go to 
England to place themselves at the dis- 
position of the Regent, as the Empress 
was then called. But the testimony 
clearly establishes that Regnier appeared 
to have brought to Marshal Bazaine a 
proposition that he should sign a treaty 
permitting the army of Metz to retire 
into a neutral zone, and that he should 
Vie allowed to leave the fortress with 



320 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 

military honors on condition of no to communicate with the fallen Em- 
further resistance to the Germans during press. 

the course of the war. Bazaine, it is All this was certainly enough to make 
true, resolutely declared at his trial, that Republican France believe that the com- 
neither he nor any of his comrades would mander-in-chief of the Army of the 
have consented to any conditions such Rhine, who ought to have fought his 
as those which would have divided the way out of Met/, two mouths before, 
National Defense. Regnier, who was was nothing less than a traitor. When 
called as a witness in the trial, took care General Changarnier was sent to treat 
to keep out of (lie way. It is variously with Piince Fiiederich Kail, he was 
supposed that he was an ageni of Von charged by Bazaine to demand the neu- 
Bismarck, or that he was a real envoy tralization of the Army of the Rhine, 
from the Imperialist 1'artv, whose aims and the territory that it occupied, and 
were furthered by Bismarck, because that an armistice, during which an appeal 
wily diplomat saw that if Bazaine were was to lie made to the deputies and to 
allowed to believe himself the arbiter the constituted powers, under virtue of 
of the defense of France he could be the constitution of May, 1870, for a 
duped in any manner desirable. Regn- treaty of peace between the two antago- 
ier certainly made a definite offer to nists. There is also a fine flavor of 
Canrolieit and to Bourbaki to go to the Imperialism in the phrase in which 
Empress, and Bourbaki accepted and Bazaine asks that he be allowed to fulfil 
went. < )n the Kiih of October Bazaine, a mission of order, meaning, of course, 
instead of cutting his way out of Metz that the obliging enemy should let him 
and going to help the regularly consti- pass through its lines and go to put 
tuted government of his country in its down the new Republic in Paris, 
resistance to invasion, sent. General The affair of the flags at the time 
Boycr to Versailles, where that general of the surrender of Metz put the linish- 
entered into a long series of interviews ing touch to Bazaine's disastrous career. 
with Count Von Bismarck relative to the The Republicans stoutly claim that, had 
surrender of Met/.. All that General it not been for his stupid hesitation, aud 
Boycr got out of Bismarck was that the for the multiplicity of his orders and 
conditions imposed lor the raising of the counter-orders, all the flags of the gar- 
siege were that the fidelity of the army rison would have been burned, and the 
of the Rhine to the Empress Eugenie French nation would have been spared 
should be fully affirmed, that a mani- the shame of knowing that hundreds 
testation of this fidelity should be pub- of its banners are exhibited in Berlin, 
licly made in Met/, on the part of the As it was, many a valiant general and 
army, and that even the signature of colonel, with that reckless defiance of 
the Empress to the preliminaries of a military discipline which came with a. 
treaty of peace should lie obtained, disgust for Bazaine's course, burned the 
General Boyer returned to Metz with Hags of their commands, or broke them 
these conditions, laid them before a a. id trampled them into the earth, and 
council, in which Bazaine, General sent word to the commander of the place 
Ladmirault, Marshal Le Boeuf, and to say that they had done so. Shortly 
many other important officers, took after the capitulation of Met/, a gentle- 
part, and then went over to England man resident in Germany wrote me as 



El ROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



821 



follows: ''Wore it not for the presence 
of so many prisoners and the wounded, 
Germany would have some difficulty in 
realizing that she is now carrying on a 
tremendous war hundreds of miles away 
in the centre of a formidable enemy's 
country ; for our streets are as thronged 
as ever, business is about in its normal 
condition, and the high schools and uni- 
versities are filled up with youth, despite 
the many scholars, doctors, and profess- 
ors now on the battle-fields. A visit to 
the unbidden French guests and their 
encampments in the various cities tells 
us what the Germans are doing in France 
and have done. They sent in 1,000 pris- 
oners from Weissenburg ; G,000 from 
Woerth ; 2,500 from Spicheren ; 1,377 
from Saargemuud and Haguenau; '200 
from Vionville ; 3,000 from Gravelotte; 
8,050 from Vitry ; 2,800 from Beau- 
mont; 84,450 from Sedan; 2,280 from 
Toul ; 15,000 from Strasbourg ; 5,000 
from before Paris, and 173,000 from 
Metz. Altogether this makes a grand 
total of about 330,000 men, including 
10,000 officers and 4 marshals. 

" Three hundred and thirty thousand ! 
This is nearly the whole of the grand 
army of the Rhine, with which Napoleon 
set out to conquer Germany and take 
possession of the Rhine provinces, and 
to sign the treaty of peace in Kcenigs- 
burg or Berlin. It is not difficult to ex- 
plain why Germany made this immense 
number of prisoners. First, the Ger- 
mans themselves had special inducements 
to capture them alive, especially poor 
Turco, who had many a prize set upon 
his black head. Something in the fol- 
lowing style of telegram was received 
by Count Bismarck: 'One thousand 
good cigars for the first German soldiers 
who capture the first live Turco.' But 
the hearts of the French do not seem to 
have been in their work. A French 



writer indeed cries out that these are not 
the soldiers of France, not the succes- 
sors of the men who followed Napoleon 
the Great, who never allowed themselves 
to be taken prisoners by wholesale, as do 
the present generation. This is true 
enough; but the soldiers of the old Na- 
poleon, beaten as they were at last, had 
always something to fight for, and 
leaders whom they could always trust; 
while in 1870, from Weissenburg to 
Sedan, the campaign on the French side 
was a mass of confusion, imbecility, and 
unskilfulness of the leaders, and fight- 
ing of the men without purpose to be 
achieved. Napoleon himself complains 
that his generals would not obey his 
commands; while the prisoners here con- 
stantly repeat the reproach : • We have 
been sold; we have been sold.' 

" I have visited a number of the 
French camps in Germany, and arrive 
at the conclusion that these very prison- 
ers will be a great help to Germany 
when they return to their native land. 
The French soldiers started for the 
Rhine, expecting to find, as the most 
ignorant had been told, a people some- 
thing akin to the Cossacks of the Don, 
or, as a French school-book informs the 
youthful mind, savages upon the sand 
plains of Hanover. Pomerania was to 
them a wilderness. They knew nothing 
whatever of Germany except Prussia ; 
but they will return home with vastly dif- 
erent opinions of Germany and the Ger- 
mans, for they have been treated with a 
kindness as surprising as it was gener- 
ous. The first batch of one thousand 
coming in from Weissenburg was re- 
ceived with silence by vast crowds, and 
was the recipient of favors which even 
the German soldiers did not obtain. 
The greatest good feeling has been pro- 
duced between citizens and prisoners; 
for, although excursion trains are run 



322 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



every Sunday to the French camp, the 
people wlio go only go to do good offices, 
:ind not merely to stare. The German 
ladies have been somewhat censured for 
the great desire they manifest to 
give their French an airing. The op- 
portunity to speak French with a native 
does not come every day, and the fair 
beings may therefore he excused. Es- 
pecially among the wounded, where the 
French and Germans occupied the same 
rooms, the latter have at times a. cause 
of complaint that German ladies should 
have preferred to notice the French. In 
a Saxon hospital two good fellows de- 
termined, not long ago, to take advantage 
of this curiosity on the part of their lady 
visitors, and as one of their number 
could speak French like a Frenchman, 
they dressed him up as a prisoner, and 
every one desiring to see the French 
wounded was at once referred to him. 
One lady was so charmed by his story 
and his language that she not only took 
his address, but made him a present of 
some money. No sooner had she disap- 
peared than loud laughter burst forth. 
The supposed Frenchman rose a stout 
Saxon, and the money thus won was dis- 
tributed among the comrades." 



This good-natured letter, in which the 
German feeling is fairly represented, 
unfortunately does not convey the entire 
truth. There was great suffering, moral 
and physical, among the thousands of 
prisoners, especially after the cold 
weather set in. and many accounts pub- 
lished shortly after the return of the 
prisoners indicate that, while the treat- 
ment by the civilians was uniformly kind 
and reasonably courteous, the military 
authorities were harsh and sometimes 
vindictive. The tent encampments, out- 
side fortresses like Magdeburg, Cob- 
lentz, Mainz. Stettin, Glogau, Erfurt, 
Posen, and Wesel, each containing from 
five to ten thousand prisoners, were the 
scene of much misery, and sometimes of 
the most tragic deaths. High-spirited 
men. like General Ducrot ami others, 
would not stand the long-inflicted hu- 
miliation, and boldly made their es- 
cape. Ducrot was bitterly accused by 
the Germans of having violated his 
word of honor in thus escaping; 
but he has sufficiently defended him- 
self against this charge in his able 
work on the early part of the cam- 
paign. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



323 



CHAPTER TIITRTY-FOUR. 



The Desperate Battles .it I, e Bourget. — Remarkable Valor of the French. — Episodcsof the Defense. — 
The Charge of the Marines. — Thiers ami Bismarck. — The Insurrection of the 31st of October. — 
Brilliant Conduct of Jules Ferry. 



THE Parisians, despite their numerous 
disasters, had lost none of their 
traditional gayety of speech, and were 
able to say, when they heard that Gen- 
eral Aurelles de Paladines had bad bis 
army cut in two, — "That will make two 
armies instead of one, and makes ns 
just so much the stronger." But light 
and pleasant sayings do not always go 
with ligbt hearts, and after the terrible 
affair of Le Bourget the resistance of 
Paris lost its hopeful character. M. 
Jules Favre says that it precipitated the 
insurrection of the 31st of October. 

The village of Le Bourget was a very 
important situation for an army invest- 
ing Paris ; and the Prussians had seized 
it aud held it until the 28th of October, 
at which tune the Francs-Tireurs of the 
press made a descent upon it, and, sur- 
prising the Prussians in their sleep, took 
possession, making many prisoners and 
killing large numbers of the enemy. 
It was not at all to the taste of the 
Germans to see the batteries which they 
had established at Pont Iblon and ad- 
jacent places seriously menaced ; so, at 
ten o'clock on the morning of the French 
occupation, the Germans who bad es- 
caped came back strongly reinforced, 
and made a tremendous attack. The 
Francs-Tireurs bad their feeble forces 
strengthened by a few companies of 
Mobiles, and they made a defense of the 
position which they had so recently 
taken which may deservedly rank with 
that of Chateaudun. The little band of 



Frenchmen was subjected to a terrible 
artillery fire for more than five hours. 
Nearly every house in Le Bourget was 
riddled with shell ; but the troops held 
firm, and at nightfall the enemy had to 
retire. There were two severe attacks 
made there the same evening, — one of 
them by the grenadiers of the Prussian 
Guard ; but this was repulsed, and, 
meantime a battalion of Mobiles, under 
tin' command of a valiant young officer 
named Baroche, arrived from St. Denis. 
All night the contending forces wmked 
at strengthening their positions, and at 
dawn the battle began anew with great 
fury. 

Le Bourget suffered a second bom- 
bardment, more than forty cannon 
throwing shells for nine hours into the 
now half-wrecked houses, in which three 
thousand men were intrepidly defending 
themselves. It is said that on this day 
the Prussians threw two thousand shells 
into this one long street of Le Bourget. 
The Prussians were hindered from mak- 
ing an overpowering night attack by the 
electric light, thrown from the forts, 
which lit up the fields fur miles around, 
and prevented the massing of troops at 
the proper points. 

On Sunday, the .".nth of October, the 
Germans, about fifteen thousand strong, 
with forty-eight cannon, made a final at- 
tack. Fifteen batteries threw converg- 
ing lire upon the town ; and, in less (ban 
half an hour after the attack on Sunday 
morning, the sixteen hundred French- 



324 



El ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



men who remained of the brave defend- 
ers of Le Bourgel had had tin-own ;il 
them fifteen hundred shells. The two 
French officers Brassour and Baroche 
appear to have conducted themselves like 
veritable heroes. The fight on Sunday 
seemed to have awakened the pride of 
the Germans, who fancied that they hail 
in front of them a large French lone; 
and the Queen Elizabeth regiment of the 
Prussian Guard came up at half-past 
eight in the morning, with its band 
playing, and its dags flying, to carry the 
first barricade at the entrance of the \ il- 
lage. The troops ran forward with their 
usual " Hurrah ! " but they were met by a 
strong fusillade, so deadly, that, accord- 
ing to the testimony of the Germans 
themselves, nothing had been seen like 
it in the war. 

"As the Second battalion of the regi- 
ment came up." says a German writer, 
'•one of the color-sergeants was shot 
down. A young officer ran forward, 
seized the flag, which was falling to the 
ground, and, as he raised it up, also fell 
mortally wounded. A general then dis- 
mounted from his horse, seized the flag, 
and, holding il high above his head, 
rushed forward in frontof his grenadiers. 
Two colonels of the regiments engaged 
in the charge were killed in the front 
rank of their troops. The general, 
however, who had seized the flag, seemed 
lo hear a charmed life." The hardy 
German pioneers, with their axes and 
crowbars, worked away at a. breach; 
and in a. short time the little French 
band found itself taken between two 
fires. The town was not given up 
until, out of the sixteen hundred men. 
twelve hundred eombatauts were taken 
prisoners, slain, or wounded. 

Near the church in the interior of the 
village the officer Brasseur, already 
mentioned, held out to the last, sur- 



rounded by a hundred of the bravest of 
(he soldiers. On the right, the com- 
mandant Baroche, who had with him 
about sixty men, determined to die 
rather than surrender, and when he was 
struck down by a, shell he begged his 
soldiers, with his dying breath, to hold out 
half an hour, " because, "he said, "help 
was certain to arrive in that time." 

Tin' officer Brasseur, when the barri- 
cade which he had been defending was 
carried by a charge of several hundred 
of the enemy, shut, himself, with seven 
other officers and about twenty soldiers, 
into the church, and kept up a vigorous 
(ire from the windows until his little band 
was literally crushed. When he was 
driven into a corner, and forced to give 
up his sword, he wept like ft child. The 
Prussian officer who took the weapon was 
deeply affected, and could not refrain 
from strongly complimenting him on his 
personal courage. The Prince of YVur- 
temburg the next day sent back the 
sword with his persona] compliments. 
That the Prince was deeply impressed by 
this heroic defense is shown by his proc- 
lamation, issued from the head-quarters 
at Gonesse, on the 30th, in which he 
speaks of Le Bourget having been de- 
fended by the best troops in the Paris 
garrison against the Second division of 
the Infantry corps, with certain special 
troops which had been joined to it. 

This light cost the Germans a large 
number of their best officers and more 
than three thousand soldiers. What 
might not such troops as the defenders 
of Le Bourget have done had they been 
properly commanded, and had the gen- 
erals inside Paris known how to utilize 
tin' three hundred or three hundred and 
fifty thousand men who remained useless 
inside the ramparts the greater portion 
of the period of the siege? 

There was another and almost as san- 



EUROPE fN STORM AND CALM. 



325 



guinary encounter between flic besiegers 
and the beseiged at this same Le 
Bourget towards the close of December, 
in which occurred the celebrated charge 
by a battalion of marines supported by 
a detachment of troops of the French 
line under the orders of a noted naval 
captain. This charge of the marines, 
with their revolvers and hatchets in 
hand, upon the German troops who had 
taken up position in the cemetery of 
Le Bourget, has become legendary in 
France, and has been chosen by many of 
the military painters as a fitting subject 
for the illustration of the French valor 
which proved of so little avail. 

This second attack was crowned with 
only partial success ; and the marines, 
who had at first been so successful, were 
badly cut to pieces before they came out 
of the affair. This battle at Le Bourget 
was part of a general scheme for an 
attack upon Montretout, Buzenval, and 
other important positions, where, how- 
ever, the German line proved always too 
strong to be broken through. 

While these heroic efforts for the de- 
liverance of Paris were in progress, during 
the last days of October, the venerable 
M. Thiers hail been doing some vigor- 
ous work in behalf of unhappy France, 
and comforting the Government of Na- 
tional Defense with the assurance that 
the four great neutral powers, England. 
Russia, Austria, and Italy, were willing 
to propose to the belligerents an armis- 
tice, with a view to the convocation of a 
French national assembly ; also, that this 
armistice would have for its conditions 
the revictnalling of Paris and the un- 
trammelled election of the country's rep- 
resentatives. M. Thiers was full of 
energy and hope. He sacrificed himself 
to the interests of the moment, pocket- 
ing his pride, and was willing to go 
hither and yon to meet Bismarck or any 



one else if he could do his country ser- 
vice. The news .if Hi.' capitulation of 
Metz almost crushed the little man for 
the lime being; but he concealed his 

anxiety. 

On his return from Tours, where he 
had been aiding Gambettain the organi- 
zation of the defense in the south, he 
was obliged to pass through Versailles, 
and to make acall upon Count, Bismarck, 
to whose desire to appear in the eves of 
Europe perfectly fair he owed his safe 
conduct through the Prussian lines. Few 
interviews between celebrated men have 
ever been stranger than this one be- 
tween the ambitions Prussian Chancellor 
and the accomplished French statesman, 
tinder these trying circumstances, which 
required all their self-control and 
politeness. When Bismarck received 
Thiers he at once said. " I know that 
we have no right to talk business, and I 
shall scrupulously refrain from any 
mention of it." The two gentlemen, 
therefore, entered upon a general con- 
versation, which was brief, and which 
must have exhausted all their artifices. 
M. Thiers was escorted to the Bridge of 
Sevres, and was allowed free passage to 
the lines of his friends. 

That the formidable insurrection of 
the 31st of October was nipped in the 
bud was due largely to the energetic 
conduct of one man, who has since 
become very prominent in French affairs, 
— M. Jules Ferry. When the Hotel de 
Ville was invaded by the immense crowds 
who were disloyal to the Government of 
National Defense, M. Ferry was the 
first to assume an attitude of bold resist- 
ance, and he maintained it until all the 
troubles were over. The insurrection 
began as insurrections in Paris have 
begun since time immemorial, — by the 
invasion of the hall in which flic regu- 
larly constituted authorities were deli;.- 



326 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 

erating. M. Jules Favre has given us Jules Simon was violently maltreated by 
a striking picture of this invasion of the the Communists. Delescluze, destined 
Council Room, where he was seated with afterwards todie upon a barricade in the 
General Trochu, M. Gamier Pages, M. Commune, openly expressed his contempt 
Jules Simon, and Ernest Picard. The and disdain for Jules Favre. The volun- 
tiery Flourens and Milliere, afterwards teers of the National Guards from Belie- 
so conspicuous in the Commune, were at ville, infuriated with drink and with their 
the head of the National Guards, the ephemeral victory, repeatedly hinted at 
grim workmen, the volunteers in all the massacre of their prisoners. Flou- 
kinds of fantastic uniforms, who rushed reus was, from time to time, obliged to 
into the room uttering savage cries, and appeal to his followers not to give the 
who would have been willing to stain world the spectacle <>f a fratricidal en- 
their hands in the blood of the men who counter. " Let us avoid the shedding 
had been doing their best to serve them, of blood," he said ; "but let us carry our 
Flourens considered the insurrection as point." 

successful, and harangued the citizens, Jules Favre was twice in imminent 
saying that they had overturned the danger of death. A dozen muskets were 
government which had betrayed them, levelled at his head. " It was," he says, 
lie at once nominated himself, Milliere, " a solemn but imposing moment, and 1 
Delescluze, Rochefort, Blanqui, and still ask myself how it was that no one 
others, instead of those whom he pre- of these men, most of whom were com- 
tended to overthrow ; and his followers pletely intoxicated did not press the trig- 
sanctioned by shouts whatever he said, ger of his gun." 

" During this burlesque scene," says The government was liberated from 

Jules Favre, " we did not budge from its disagreeable and rather humiliating 

our scats. General Trochu took off his position the same night by the energetic 

epaulettes, and passed them to one of action of a little body of National Guards, 

his officers who was near him; "and he friendly to the national cause. The 

told M. Favre afterwards, that he had leaders of the insurrection retired once 

done this no as to put the insignia of his more into the shade, muttering ven- 

militaiv authority beyond the reach of geance dire upon those who had dared 

an affront. lie quietly lit a. cigarette, to interfere with them. Jules Ferry had 

and waited the movements of the rioters. been at the head of the column which 

The story is too long to give in detail forced the gates of the Hotel de Ville, and 

here. Enough to say that the ( lovernment finally compelled the rioters to retire. For 

of National Defense narrowly escaped a few minutes it looked as if he would 

complete annihilation on this unfortunate pay with his life for his audacity; but 

day. The Commune was already starting his personal magnetism was so strong 

from its concealment, and was admir- and his language was so energetic that 

ably organized with a view to replacing they dared not harm him, and he carried 

instantly, and with as little collision as his point against them. In January of 

possible, the government which alone had 1871 lie was a prominent figure in the 

tin' right to call itself national. The second resistance against a body of 

members of the Committee of National insurgents, who came after the disastrous 

Defense were prisoners in the hands of fight at Montretout to attack the Hotel 

these insurrectionists for several hours, de Ville. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



327 



November came in gloomy and full of 
menaces of war. The little band of 
members of the Government of National 
Defense found that the attempt upon its 
authority had strengthened its hold upon 
the affections of all truly patriotic citi- 
zens, and. appealing to the population 
for support, it received a vote of confi- 
dence which was highly gratifying. For 
the time being the government contented 
itself with removing from their military 
positions Floureus and all the others 
who had held important places in the 
insurrection; and about this time Roche- 
fort, who was gradually becoming iden- 
tified with the Radical Party and with 
the cause of the Communists, which lie 
afterwards vainly disavowed, resigned 
his position as a member of the govern- 
ment. M. Thiers had not been able to 
give his advice to the governing powers 
during the difficult days through which 
they had just passed, for he hail re- 
turned at once to Versailles, anxious to 
conclude an armistice. This time he 
was enabled to talk business with Count 
Von Bismarck ; and he has left ou record 
a singularly bright and sparkling account 
of the manner in which he urged his 
claims, and the claims of his beloved 
capital, upon the accomplished represent- 
ative of the conquering party. He re- 
mained three or four days at Versailles, 
meeting the Chancellor very frequently, 
and fancied that he was about to carry 
his point, when, on the evening of the 3d 
of November, he asked Count Von Bis- 
marck what guarantees he was likely to 
ask during the suspension of hostilities. 
Bismarck made the same answer that he 
had made to Jules Favre at Ferrieivs. 
that he should require a military position 
in front of Paris. "One fort." he added ; 
" perhaps more than one." 

" I immediately interrupted the Chan- 
cellor," says M. Thiers. " You are 



asking for Paris," I said to him; "you 
refuse to revictual the capital during the 
armistice, thus taking a month of our 
resistance away from us. To exact 
from us one or more of our forts is 
nothing less than demanding our ram- 
parts. You want us, in short, to give 
you the means of starving us out or 
bombarding us. In treating with us for 
an armistice you could hardly suppose 
that the capital condition would be to 
abandon Paris to you, — Paris, which 
is our supreme force, our great hope, 
and for you so great a difficulty that 
after fifty days of siege you have not yet 
taken it." 

" When we got to this point," says 
M. Thiers, "we could go no further. 
Whereupon Count Von Bismarck de- 
clared that if the French government 
wished to hold elections without an ar- 
mistice, he would offer no hindrance to 
a free election of representatives in all 
the sections occupied by the Prussian 
armies, and would facilitate communica- 
tion between Paris and Tours for every- 
thing except military despatches." 

There is little doubt that after this 
stern refusal on the part of the Germans 
to interrupt the course of the war M. 
Thiers gave up all hope of a successful 
resistance. He had done his duty, 
and accomplished what no other man 
in France could have done. He had 
pleaded the cause of Paris at the courts 
of England, Russia, Austria, and Italy, 
making light, even at his advanced age, 
of the great physical and intellectual 
strain to which he was subjected during 
journeys doubly wearisome because of 
the suspense concerning affairs at home 
which hung perpetually about his heart. 

He, more clearly than any one else, saw 
that the war was to be to its very close a 
fatal one for France ; but, gallantly keep- 
ing his doubts and despairs to himself, he 



328 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

returned from Versailles to 'rums, and from Creuzot, he brought cannon ; at 

placed himself at the disposal of the Angouleme millions of cartridges were 

delegates there. made. lie even thought atone time of 

It was no light work which Gambetta sending cartridges into Paris by balloon, 

had undertaken in the South. When he With all these interests of the nation in 

arrived at Toms half the important his hands, and being himself virtually 

fortresses in the country had capitulated, dictator of all France outside of Paris 

and the others — Paris, Phalsbourg, Me- for mouths, bis fidelity to bis trust was 

zieres, Thionville, Bitehe, Montmedy, so complete and perfect that, when later 

and Verdun — were surrounded bylines in bis political career the slanderous 

of iron and steel, and their condition accusation was brought against him 

was almost hopeless. Gambetta seemed of having profited by the manufacture 

t<> bring men and muskets and cannon of arms for the country's defenders, 

out of the very earth. With his powerful the whole French nation, with the ex- 

and seductive eloquence he won the ceptiou of his few slanderers, rose in 

hearts of the enthusiastic southern popu- revolt against such an injury; and he 

Iations. lie created a commission of proved beyond the shadow of doubt 

armament, which, in three months, de- that not only had he not received the 

livered into the hands of men who un- millions falsely attributed to him, but. 

fortunately did not know how to use that he had not profited by as much as a 

them, one million two hundred thousand single sou in any of his public labors in 

guns. From Nantes, from St. Etienne, his country's behalf. 



EUROPE J.V STORM AND CALM. 



329 



CHAPTER TIIIUTY-Fl\*k. 



Life at Head-quarters. — The Parades on ths T'laee d'Armes. — Von Moltke in Versailles, — King Will- 
iam's Daily Labors. — Bismarck's Habits. — The General Staff, —The Hotel dos Reservoirs. — A 
Journey around Besieged Paris. -The Story of Mont Valerien. — Muhoih Laffittc in War Time. 
— Getting Under Fire. — The French ami German Pickets. — In the Foremost Investment Lines. — 
Montmorency. — The Fight near Enghien. — Saint Gratieu. — Tin- Day Before Champigny. 



ri^IIE Germans act as though they had 
-L come to stay here forever," said a 
nervous French friend of mine, in a comic 
mood, as we walked through the splendid 
courtyard of the great palace of Ver- 
sailles one morning late in November, 
when the contesting parties just outside 
the historic town were in their sternest 
mood, and when the Germans were 
bringing up their "final arguments,'' — 
hundreds of cannon, which had been 
packed in neighboring villages, waiting 
what the Chancellor, with his brutal satire, 
called " the psychological moment." 

Indeed, the royal head-quarters was 
but little disturbed by the battles near by 
save on one or two occasions, when vic- 
tories seemed at last to alight upon (he 
French standards, at the time of the 
great sortie which culminated in the 
sanguinary encounter at Champigny. 
French Versailles had taken on the sul- 
len aspect of a conquered place, where 
politeness was only accorded because it 
was bred in the flesh, and commerce 
fostered because the invader insisted 
upon it. lint there was a German Ver- 
sailles, life in which went on regularly, 
cheerfully, and in rather picturesque 
fashion. 

The first event of the day was invari- 
ably a military parade upon the Place 
d'Armes, and this was conducted with 
as much care and precision as if it had 
been in some garrison town in the inte- 



rior of Germany. The regiments pa- 
raded were those freshly arrived in the 
enmpaign. The inspection was merci- 
less, fault-finding was frequent, punish- 
ment severe. After the parade came 
concerts by the splendid bands of the 
crack regiments, and around these bands, 
in the great avenues, gathered hundreds 
of elegantly uniformed officers, soldiers 
of all arms of the service ; but rarely 
did a French gentleman or lady pause to 
listen to the music or to gaze upon the 
enemy. 

By the time the concerts were over, 
dusk had drawn its curtains round the 
town, and all the shops closed ; the cafes 
remained open, lint hotels barred their 
doors at nine o'clock, when the patrols 
began to move through the streets. The 
great cJi&teau, with its noble entrance- 
way guarded by the sculptured figures of 
the military heroes of France, was vis- 
ited daily by hundreds of soldiers on 
leave, and by the motley army fol- 
lowers, huge wagoners and serving-men, 
all of them anxious to increase their 
stock of knowledge of French history. 
Now and then the King drove to the 
palace to see the wounded soldiers placed 
in the airiest and tightest of the halls. 
The superb park, with all its appurte- 
nances of Trianon, chalet, and foun- 
tains, was deserted save at early morn- 
ing, when troops of horsemen clattered 
through the long alleys, or save when at 



330 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

dawn .', silcut procession of soldiers, es- horse, with one groom behind him, rode 

eorting one of their comrades sentenced through the town almost every morning, 

to execution, went, out to a sinister hoi- as simply dressed as any "1' his officers, 

low behind a hedge, where they pro- The distinctions between prince and 

ceeded to take the life which the com- commander were so slight that a careless 

rade had forfeited. observer would not have noticed them. 

Yon Moltke sometimes promenaded in King William was rarely accompanied in 

the park at seven in the morning, stern his public promenades, in carriages, or 

and passionless, with his arms hanging on horseback, by any e save servants 

motionless at his sides, and, although in at. n respectful distance. lie had an 

primly arranged uniform, and with his immense round of daily labor, difficult 

sword clattering at his side, he looked to support, considering his advanced 

more like a schoolmaster or a country age. The royal courier left the Pre- 

clergvman than like a great general, fecture of Versailles, where the King re- 

The Versaillais soon learned his habits, sided, every day for Berlin, with special 

and now and then, actuated by some despatches, letters, etc.. and the royal 

unaccountable impulse, — perhaps admi- mail left Lagny every morning at five 

ration for his very sternness and modesty, o'clock. The King may be said to have 

— they saluted him as he passed ! lb' passed his time in writing and dictating 

was never attended by an escort, of any letters for those mails, interspersing his 

kind. When the bands were playing toil with brief outings in the town and 

in the avenue of St. ('loud, he often an occasional dash over into the invest- 

walked slowly through the throngs of ment lines to see how a battle was going, 

officers, raising his hand to Ins cap The Crown Prince rested in a measure 

abstractedly when he was saluted, from his labors at Versailles, although 

There was nothing to be read in his scarcely a day passed that he was not 

face. It testified neither to joy or fear, called upon to give judgment upon some 

to anxiety or to deep thought. He important, crisis in the campaign; but 

never seemed to sec anyone: his gaze even he was subject to the orders of 

was introspective, and his walk plan- Yon Moltke. 

tigrade, like that of one ascending a Count Von Bismarck kept himself 

steep hill. very close for a long time after his ar- 

The plainness with which most of the rival at Versailles, and numerous tales 

Prussian royal personages dressed during were told of his eccentric habits, how 

the campaign divested them of the ! nil- he did but little work by day, but, lying 

liant halo usually surrounding persons in his bed at night, surrounded with 

of rank. The King appeared quite as candles stuck in the necks of empty 

simple as one of the Soldiers of his champagne bottles, wrote, dictated, anil 

household, if he happened to be placed planned, smoking furiously, and drinking 

beside him. Red and black were the extraordinary mixtures of champagne 

predominating colors. There were few and beer. " When he has finished a 

regiments in which a dozen different bottle of champagne," said one inform- 

hues were so mingled as to produce aid., who communicated the statement 

the- dazzling sheen which makes some to me as if it were of the greatest im- 

armies so attractive. portance, " he lights a fresh candle, and 

The Crown Prince, mounted on a line sticks it, in the bottle; and so when 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



331 



morning comes ho is surrounded with 
lights, as if he were illuminating in his 
own honor." 

When Bismarck appeared in public 
more frequently in December, it was 
observed tlmt he had grown old with 
startling rapidity. He looked ten years 
older than when he had left Berlin a few 
months before. The head-quarters of the 
general staff was in the Rue Neuve. It 
was a tranquil, mysterious-looking house, 
where even the sentinels seemed to walk 
with muffled tread, and where no noise 
was ever heard. There were elaborated 
all the great projects of the siege ; there 
the whole network surrounding Paris 
was daily studied with grave caution ; 
there Oberst-Lieut. Von Verdy re- 
ceived the journalists, and dulled their 
eagerness for news with non-committal 
replies ; there Von Podbielski elaborated 
the despatches in which he had little to 
announce but continuous victory. 

The old and far-famed Hotel des Res- 
ervoirs, the Cafe de Neptune, and the 
cttj'rx in the neighborhood of the Place 
Hoche were favorite resorts for princes 
and grandees, who came and went, and 
was the centre for newsgatherers, diplo- 
matic agents, etc. At the Reservoirs, 
towards noon, there was generally a 
brilliant assemblage. Dukes, priuces, 
and princelings without number came to 
breakfastin the noted restaurant. Smart 
carriages rattled along the stone-paved 
way leading into the courtyard. A row 
of bareheaded, primly dressed serving- 
men stood ready to receive their particu- 
lar " Excellencies," and couriers ready 
to vault into the saddle waited important 
orders which were given over breakfast 
plates. In the cafis there were always 
dozens of oflieers on leave who had come 
to see the palace, the park, and to drink 
'unlimited coffee and cognac to the as- 
tonishment of the sober Frenchmen. 



Comparatively few of the wounded 
were sent into Versailles after it became 
the royal head-quarters. Ambulances 
and ambulance men were almost num- 
berless. Ladies and gentlemen of all 
nations and professions had devoted 
themselves to the charitable work of 
caring for the wounded ; and those sol- 
diers who were fortunate enough to be 




VON MOLTKE. 

sent to the Palace for treatment had but 
one thing to complain of — the multi- 
plicity of the attentions shown them. 
The Hotel des Reservoirs was a sanitary 
station. American, English, and Bel- 
gian physicians did good service in and 
around Versailles from the beginning to 
the end of the siege. 

To the right and left of the Place 
d'Armes, adjoining the ch&teau, are the 
great cavalry quarters, immense barracks, 
built in a semi-circle ; ami these afforded 



332 FCnOPK IN STORM AND CALM. 

good accommodation to the invaders. In had now been found out, and tho go-be- 

front of these, of a fine afternoon, five tweens were shortly to be executed. 

or six hundred spirited horses might From Saint Germain, the fine Landwehrs- 

be seen out for exercise the officers' ser- men of the Royal Guard had just de- 

vants, generally quite as good cavaliers parted, leaving behind them praises, even 

as their masters, putting the splendid in the months of their enemies, for their 

beasts through all manner of equine excellent conduct. At the limits of Saint 

gymnastics. Every morning the avenues Germain we found the Fourth army 

were blocked for an hour by the long corps, commanded by General Von Al- 

provision trains arriving from the rear, veusleben, who had his head-quarters es- 

The teamsters of these trains provoked tablished at Soissy. 

much laughter even among the saddened On the way over the hill, leading into 

citizens of Versailles. They were ragged Saint Germain, one of ray companions 

and saucy, and seemed to have been told me, in sprightly fashion, the story of 

chosen from the oddest, of odd German Mont Valerien. •• In the fifteenth cen- 

types. tin -y," said he, " when the Prussians 

We made frequent journeys around were still savages on the Brandenburg 
Paris during the siege; but some ae- sands, the height on which Valerien 
count of that one which I first made, after stands was the Mecca for thousands of 
the investment was declared complete, pious pilgrims. The hill was called Cal- 
will serve to give a few pictures of the vary, and on it were erected three crosses, 
besiegers. I left Versailles with two whose gloomy outlines recalled the pain- 
companions one morning for Montmo- ful death of our Saviour and his compan- 
rency, which lay directly in the foremost ions. The superstitious peasantry of the 
line of investment, and in an advanta- neighborhood firmly believed that if they 
geous position for an outlook on Paris, did not make their early pilgrimage to this 
The weather was beautifully clear, al- Valerien Calvary they would be cursed 
though we were at the end of November, with ill-luck. In the seventeenth ceu- 
and with glasses avc could discern the tury the church of Sainte-Croix was 
French at work on Mont Valerien, and built on the hill-top. to commemorate the 
saw thei icasionally firing a heavy gun pilgrimages of previous times, inula con- 
in the direction of St. Cloud. Between vent was soon added. Of this convent 
Versailles and Saint Germain we found Richelieu became the director; but in 
the Westphalian corps .stationed, and the seventeenth century, the priests sold 
were struck with the wonderful solidity the property to the Jacobins, and the 
and strength of the men. At that point controlling bishops of Notre Dame re- 
even, and at that period of the siege, the fused to ratify the bargain. Out of 
French would have found it impossible this dispute grew a veritable battle, in 
to break through. which all the peasants of the vicinity 

After a hasty breakfast, we took the joined. The convent was stormed, and 

road through the forest towards Maisons the Jacobins remained masters. The 

Laffltte. There we were told that the property was finally restored to its orig- 

French had succeeded in establishing inal owners by parliamentary decree, 

daily communication between Paris and Jean-Jacques Rousseau hived to wander 

Saint Germain, and had had a mail ser- on the hill for hours together, and once 

vice in operation for some weeks; but it said to a friend who was with him when 



El ROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 



XV.) 



he came suddenly upon a chapel in which 
some peasants were praying: 'Now I 
understand for the first time what the 
Gospel says. — " Where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them.'" The eon- 
vent buildings existed long after the 
order for their suppression had been 
passed by the National Assembly. Na- 
poleon I. imagined that a nest of con- 
spirators was concealed there, and 
demolished the convent to substitute 
barracks, nearly completed when 1814 
arrived, and the building site fell again 
into the hands of the Catholics. Under 
the Restoration the three crosses were 
raised anew by the church, and the con- 
vents were rebuilt. But in 1830 the 
Jesuits were expelled, and the holy edi- 
fices fell into decay. Soon after the for- 
midable great walls of the present fortress 
arose, commanding the valleys and the 
routes in the vicinity. Immense liar- 
racks and bomb proofs were con- 
structed, and in ordinary times a garri- 
son of two thousand men would make 
but little show in the immense place. 
The French," concluded my fellow- 
traveller, '• maintain that the reduction 
of Valerien by bombardment is impossi- 
ble." As hi' finished this sentence, the 
old fort growled, and the white puff of 
smoke showed us that the gunners, see- 
ing us pass, had felt it their duty to 
salute us with the customary useless 
shell. 

From Maisons Latlitte we went, on to 
Argenteuil. The forest beyond Saint 
Germain was beautiful in its garb of 
freshly fallen and crystallized snow, and 
the long alleys looked like marble sculpt- 
ured aisles in some vast cathedral. An 
hour's ride brought us to several little 
towns attached to each other by a slender 
thread of houses, and we were soon in 
Maisons Latlitte, and on the Seine bank. 



At Maisons Latlitte we found few sol- 
diers, and the peasants were very aggres- 
sive, and treated us with open hostility 
and suspicion. We were obliged to 
press one of them into our service and 
force him to show us the chdteau which 
Mansard built for Louis XII. down by 
the river banks. The grounds were line, 
their natural beauties not having been 
defaced by the insipid style of gardening 
for which Le Notre was notorious, and 
the broad walks, bordered by pedestals on 
which stood busts of the Roman Em- 
perors, were quite imposing. We entered 
the great hall, where nude Grecian figures 
gleamed above us. The ch&teau had for 
a long time been occupied by the be- 
siegers, and, although few attempts at 
wanton destruction iiad been made, there 
were visible marks of occupation. The 
owner of" the ch&teau at that time was 
tin' president of a great insurance com- 
pany of Paris, and his private papers 
had been scattered hither and yon. The 
pianos were opened, the beds were left 
richly dressed. In the gorgeously deco- 
rated bed-chamber, and the dainty bou- 
doir, bidden in drifting clouds of rich 
lace, a. dozen officers had their quarters, 
and champagne bottles and cigar stumps 
strewed the waxed floors. In the picture 
gallery, where the paintings were undis- 
turbed, mattresses left lying about showed 
that forty soldiers had slept. The fire- 
places were filled with broken meats and 
bottles. A huge avenue led down to the 
river bank, where formerly there was a 
fine bridge over the Seine. This had 
been blown up early in December. Here 
we were obliged to cross in range of 
Mont Valerien ; but the gunners did not 
deign to notice us this time. On the 
other bank, at the village called Sartrou- 
ville, we found soldier; from the fourth 
corps pushing forward to Argenteuil, 
the nearest point to Paris within the lines. 



334 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

At Sartrouville we hoard the sharp Prussians, — not to talk to Frenchmen 

crack of the cliassepots, the French out- within the German lines and tell them 

posts keeping up an incessant fire upon what we knew. The lower road from 

the Prussians passing unconcernedly to Sartrouville to Argenteuil was con- 

and fro within their own lines. An hour stantly swept by a small lire from the 
before our arrival. Mont Yalerien had French lines. We went down to it, hut 
been attempting to dislodge some troops came back convinced that it was not the 
not far from us. These troops were proper place for an excursion. 
nearly all young men, few older than At Argenteuil was a hill commanding 
twenty-live, sturdy, hale, honest-looking a fine view of Paris, and. in the fading 
gaillards. We watched them assisting glow of the sunset, we looked down upon 
each other in preparations for their the misty outlines of the great capital, 
march, rolling their overcoats, capping which, at this distance, seemed as calm 
their pistols, etc. At last, when every- as a cemetery. Here the Germans had 
thine was ready, they fell into line with- an observatory, from which, if inclined, 
out a word. All, as one man, put their they could look over Montmartre, and 
feet forward -n route for Argenteuil. could plainly distinguish all the opera- 
This was done so promptly, and with a. tions on the walls of Mont. Yalerien. 
movement so regular, that one might At the end of the long principal street 
have imagined every man a part of a of the town we saw a Frenchman curs- 
machine. In Sartrouville many of the ing two Prussians who had offered to 
houses were completely burned, and the buy provisions from him. lie refused to 
country was more desolate than any we give them anything, and emptied his 
had seen before. Most of the inhabi- vocabulary of invectives, finishing his 
tants had gone away, having probably remarks with a hearty burst of laughter, 
retired into Paris at the opening of the as if he were delighted with the dilemma 
siege; but a few old men were prowling in which the enemy found itself. Large 
about, beseeching the Prussians and masses of troops were drilling on a plain 
French alike for alms. beyond Argenteuil, and here, although 

We left Sartrouville late in the after- we were close to Paris and the forts, the 

noon, and neared Argenteuil just as the Germans seemed as tranquil ami as pos- 

evening sunset, was reddening (lie sky. sesscd as if they had been at home. 

As we came up the hill by which we The next village was Sanuois ; and 

were to descend into Argenteuil we saw here we crossed the railway and bent 

the quick, white puffs of smoke, which away in the direction of St. Denis and 

denoted a battle, and could hear the the other forts on the east, towards St. 

steady roll of firing ahead of us. Where Gratien and Epinai, where a sortie had 

the Seine wound away we saw the lately occurred. Here we found the 

pickets at work, ami were cautioned by Prussians very numerous, and on the 

a passing soldier not. to venture near the alert. Sentinels halted us at every turn 

river, "as French bullets," he said, in the road, and examined our papers 

" easily reached much farther than that." cautiously. Now and then we had to 

Argenteuil was deserted save by a submit to cross-questioning by some 

few blue-bloused peasants, who begged lawyer or ••Heir Doctor" with a gun 

for news with such energy that we for- on his shoulder, if he presumed to doubt 

got the rules imposed upon us by the that we had really come from Versailles. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



335 



We passed the night in the foremost 
investment lines, and not far from the 
forts of St. Denis, La Double Couronne 
du Nord, La Breche, and the Fort de 
l'Est. After we had escaped through a 
wassailing party of soldiers, who had in- 
sisted upon quarrelling with us because 
we had avowed that we were not Prus- 
sians, we went to the commandant of the 
place, who received us with courtesy, and 
who sent a soldier to find us quarters for 
the night. This commandant belonged 
to an Anhaltischer regiment, the Ninety- 
third Anhalt-Dessa.u. and was a fine 
specimen of the German military man. 
He told us that duty there was especially 
arduous, and the men had suffered much. 
The forts never allowed a night to pass 
without throwing at least an hundred 
shells into the lines, on the theory, he 
supposed, that it prevented sleep. It 
was rather startling at first to hear the 
shells come crashing into the streets. 

At Montmorency were stationed the 
Sixth and Seventh divisions of the 
Fourth army corps, the former under 
General Sehwartzhof and the latter under 
General Zelinckski. " The Fourth Pio- 
neers were not far away, in front, near 
Epinai," said the commandant, "andthey 
have had a tremendous raking from the 
very first moment of their occupation." 
They were destined to a trial even more 
severe than any that had yet been suf- 
fered, on the next night after our arrival, 
and we had an opportunity of witnessing 
many of its phases, during the opera- 
tions which the French had begun 
towards Gennevilliers and Argcnteuil as 
a diversion at the time of General 
Ducrot's great sortie, which culminated 
in the disaster at Champigny. 

Montmorency is one of the loveliest 
suburban towns near Paris. From its 
high hills, crowned with historic villus, it 
dominates a noble sweep of valley, 



forest, and lake. At the foot of one of 
these hills lies Enghien, long famous for 
its sulphur baths; and a little farther on 
is the forest in which so much fighting oc- 
curred during the siege. Aside from its 
feudal history Montmorency acquired 
peculiar interest in later days by the 
choice of it as a resilience by many dis- 
tinguished people, and as a pleasure 
haunt by the Parisians. Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau had his hermitage there. The 
old building is still shown, and the chest- 
nut trees under which the old philosopher 
used to muse are still pointed out with 
reverence. Rachel once had a villa at 
Montmorency, and in the so-called new 
hermitage both Gretry, the composer, 
and the Duchessede Berrihave had their 
homes. American and French painters 
have made Montmorency and Enghien 
and Ecouen their favorite sketching 
grounds for months together. Where 
we found the stalwart men of the Fourth 
Prussian corps grimly grasping their 
ritles at their outposts, many a painter 
had spent studious days in tin 1 wood. 

After inspecting our rather gloomy 
quarters, a deserted villa, in which I in- 
curred the displeasure of two soldiers 
because I interfered to prevent them 
from cutting joints of raw meat upon a 
costly piano, we were invited to supper 
with a young lieutenant of the command- 
ant's regiment, a baron, who insisted 
upon regaling us with music as well as 
with wine and with " Erbswurst." This 
colossus — he must have been six feet 
three, and of phenomenal measure across 
the chest — sat drinking red wine all the 
evening and listening to the music of 
Beethoven and Wagner, which one of 
his corporals played on the piano. Now 
and then the forts added their deep hass 
to the music, but we paid little attention 
to them. Th" baron had already had 
numerous shells in his quarter.;, and 



336 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



showed us pieces of one which had ex- 
ploded in his kitchen on the previous 
day. ''The men," lie said, "consider 
outpost duty here as equal to going into 
a skirmish, and they look forward to it 
with many forebodings. This picket 
duty is imposed upon them for four days. 
Those who are in the picket-line at night 
do no duty on the following day." The 
lines were something less than three 
thousand feet apart, yet very few out- 
posts were killed ; lint alarms were i - 

tinual. 

We slept that night on some rather 
unsavory straw in what hail been the 
salon of our villa, and the screaming of 
the shells going over the house, and the 
smoke and stench from the fire, built of 
fragments of green palings, in the long- 
nnused fireplace, kept us wakeful. 

Next day. as the can lading was 

furious in the direction of Enghien and 
Epinai, we left our horses, and went 
down to the road leading to Enghien and 
the forest beyond. Altera walk of an 
hour and a half through a charming 
series of villa-bordered streets, we came 
to the entrance of the town, where we 
were arrested by an officer, who, how- 
ever, soon became our guide, and told 
us that an important sortie was in prog- 
ress. 

Here tin' main railway line was barri- 
caded heavily, and a stockade had been 
built for some distance along the road. 
Barricades were numerous, and it was 
evident that the French would have 
to make a desperate light to break 
through here. The officers showed us 
the famous Chinese villa of De Ville- 
messant, the editor of the sprightly Talis 

Figaro, and i>n the opposite side of the 
lake, which is one of Enghien's attrac- 
tions, the country-house of the famous 
editor of the Liberty, Emile de Girardin. 
Bui he was soon obliged to leave us, 



and the incessant cracking of musketry 
in the French lines, about five thousand 
yards away, and the furious cannon- 
ading, convinced us that the tight 
was drawing near. From that mo- 
ment until late at night Enghien and 
its neighborhood were as thoroughly 
scourged by shells as was the battle- 
field of Sedan on the day of the 
memorable disaster to the French. 
The forward movement in the Freueh 
sortie did not begin until the next day; 
lint great mortar batteries, established 
at Argenleiiil and BezoilS, were making 

desperate efforts to dislodge the Ger- 
mans from the positions which we were 
now visiting. A furious grenade fire 
was directed upon Enghien and Saint 
Gratien. Next day the French forces 
were pushed vigorously up and into 
the edge of Epinai, their outposts re- 
maining just within the limits of the 
town after the main body hail been 
driven back. All the troops from 
Montmorency were in this tight, and 
spoke with the greatest respect of the 
fire from the forts. The commandant 
said that, at one time it was beyond 
description awful. Eight or ten shells 
per minute were thrown with remark- 
able precision into the lines of the Prus- 
sians. A brother officer of his was 
killed in a minute by a grenade, wl ich 
cut him almost in two. The losses of 
this division were about eighteen offi- 
cers and three hundred men. The 
commandant said he saw steel mitrail- 
leuse batteries, mounted on railway 
carriages, iron-clad. These we thought 
a myth, and laughed at the story; but 
his statement was subsequently proved 
to be true, and the English have since 
used these railway batteries to great 
advantage in Egypt. This command- 
ant, and all the Prussian officers whom 
we met during the next two days, 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



337 



spoke with the highest praise of the 
fighting qualities of the French. After 
the struggle at Epinai, among the 
dead were found many who had thrown 
away their rations, their caps, every- 
thing save their guns, in their desire to 
fight without hindrance. The French 
troops, said the Germans, all had three 
days' rations of white bread and cutlets 
of horse-flesh. This is all they had to 
eat. They were well equipped. Most 
of those who were found dead were 
Mobiles. Many prisoners were taken, 
and among them sonic few Zouaves. 
All along the forest country near Eng- 
hien. for the next day and a half, it 
seemed as if the mouth of hell had 
been opened ; grenades rained every- 
where ; hundreds were sunk in the lake, 
and did no good nor harm. 

Next morning, despite the cautions 
of the Germans against the Fraucs-Tir- 
eurs, who, they said, were occasionally 
to be met with in the forest, we went 
down from Montmorency through the 
wood and on to Saint Gratien, to visit 
the villa of the Princess Mathilde, a 
member of the late Imperial family. 
We were somewhat amused at the 
naiveti of the German sentinels, who 
insisted upon supposing us to be 
Frenchmen and questioned the authen- 
ticity of our military passes. We found 
the villa, a kind of bastard chdteau, 
had been used during the preceding 
day as a hospital ; and on entering, we 
found the bed-chamber of the Priucess 
stained with Prussian blood. Wounded 
men were lying groaning upon the most 
elegant aud costly couches. The pict- 
ures, the library, aud furniture re- 
flected the somewhat voluptuous tastes 
of the Princess, who had occupied the 
nook as a retreat when the gayeties of 



Paris became fatiguing. The decora- 
tions by Giraud were composed of 
subjects rather broader in tone and 
treatment than would have been ad- 
mitted in a respectable English 01 
American family. 

From the chdteau we went on to Saint 
Gratien, a little town of a few hundred 
inhabitants, celebrated as the burial 
place of a marquis who was a valiant 
soldier under the First Empire, and had 
attained the grade of Marshal, when, for 
some fault, he was reduced to the ranks, 
and retired to the forest at this unfor- 
tunate close of his military career to 
muse and mourn until death relieved 
him of his troubles. 

We returned to Enghien by another 
road through the, forest, and found the 
pioneers busy in felling the beautiful 
trees and laying them across each other 
in the most scientific manner. To for- 
tify the positions in that neighborhood, 
thousands upon thousands of noble 
trees were sacrificed. Wagon trains 
loaded with materials for fortifying the 
outside positions were creaking along 
the frosty highways, and the wagoners 
were gayly mocking at the thunderous 
refrain kept up by the four northern 
brother forts. The great, watch-dogs in 
front of the walls of Paris were barking 
with all their might and main to encour- 
age the poorly equipped and almost un- 
tried troops, which were at that moment 
beginning to grapple at Champigny with 
their heretofore triumphant and well- 
trained enemies. From Montmorency 
we pushed on through St. Brice, Villiers- 
le-Bel, and Sarcelles to Gonesse, the 
head-quarters of Prince August of Wur- 
temburg, against whose rather thin 
lines General Ducrot had thrown enor- 
mous masses of men. 



338 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CII A PTEK TI 1 1 RTY-SIX . 



The Period of Despair. — The Final Effort. — The Greal Sortie. — Champijny. — The Fight at Villiers.— 
Ducrot and Ili^ Disaster. — Valorous Conduct of the French. — The News of the Defeat of the Loire 
Army. 

THE great sortie which the Parisians to be thrown across the River Marne 
had now undertaken, and of which during the night of the 28th— 29th of 
we had seen the unsuccessful beginning, November had done his work with the 
was begun with the hope that Gambetta care and skill which the engineers of the 
had at last organized victory in the enemy's forces always showed on such 
south, and that his conquering forces, important occasions, he would have con- 
arriving from the district of the Loire, tributed no little to the raising of the 
would be able to effect a junction with siege of Paris, and perhaps might have 
the forces under the walls of Paris, and flattered himself that lie was a powerful, 
sweep away the invader into hopeless although humble, instrument in the lib- 
retreat and disastrous confusion. It is eration of the great capital, 
said upon good authority that General But the bridges were not ready. 
Trochu, despite his position as com- The Prussians, as we had observed 
mander in Paris, made no secret of his from the beginning of the campaign, 
belief that 1 lie resistance was hopeless ; and, in fact, all the German armies, 
and it is also said of him that at a carried with them, and took the utmost 
certain council, wdien he was asked if he, pains to keep in excellent order, pon- 
did not believe in resistance, "With all toon trains for all emergencies. The 
the troops in Paris we can effect noth- presence of these pontoon traius at 



inn." lie said, "except to make dust for 
future generations to walk on." Gen- 
eral Trochu was much reproached for 
many years after the war for this policy 
of despair ; but I believe he has never 
undertaken to deny or defend it. 

lie was not anxious, however, nor had 



the rear of the advancing columns 
was the means of saving many a 
noble bridge and viaduct in France, 
for the French, who are a very logical 
people, were at once convinced that 
it was useless to destroy tine masonry 
over streams which the enemv could 



he the power, to prevent the organization bridge for itself ten minutes after 

of the great effort of the last few days the arches and piers were sprung, 

of November. It is at once curious and Genius has been not inaptly described 

sad to note that this French sortie, as as an infinite capacity for taking pains, 

all the battles in the campaign, had and the supply of this capacity in the 

failed for lack of proper preparation of German army was quite wonderful, 

material resources absolutely necessary The French could improvise a defense 

to the carrying out of a military plan, out of the incessant laborof a few days; 

If the engineer who was charged with in desperate valor and in self-sacrilice 

the preparation of the pontoon bridges they were the peers of their enemy ; but, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



339 




340 



El'ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



when it came to cool foresight and 
abundant calculation, they were infinitely 

inferior. 

The Manic was not bridged at the 
proper time by the French pontoons, 
mid tlie stupendous operations which 
General Vinoy and General Ducrot were 
to have carried into effect were checked, 
and finally ruined. The only advantage 
which the French derived from the sortie 
was the infliction of tremendous losses 
upon ilie enemy, and of the addition of 
a brilliant page to French military his- 
tory. 

M. Favre, lonely in his cabinet, after 
the exhausting labors of the day, wrote 
nightly to Gambetta letters full of 
energy, courage, and hope. On the 
29th of November he wrote the brilliant 
young delegate, who was building up 
the defense in the South, a brief Hole, 
which gives a clear notion of the objects 
of the creat sortie. " As the govern- 
ment had informed you." wrote M. 
Favre, "it had fixed upon Tuesday, the 
29th, for tlie sortie, on the general plan 
which it had already given you some 
idea of. This plan was audacious, care- 
fully prepared, and its main aim was to 
pierce tlie German lines with an army 
of one hundred thousand men, and to 
join forces with you on or near the Loire. 
Tiie governor (General Trochu) began 
his movements on Sunday. The princi- 
pal task was confided to General Ducrot. 
His operations were to be masked by 
attacks from different sides, deceiving 
the enemy, and giving it no rest. The 
governor went out yesterday to one of 
the principal points to observe the pas- 
sage of his army over the Maine, on 
seven bridges ; unfortunately, at mid- 
night, a sudden rise in the Marne ren- 
dered this passage impossible." (This 
was the story which was invented to 
excuse the delay and the blunder of tiie 



engineers who had not got the bridges 
ready.) "General Vinoy, who was to 
advance upon Choisy, was not warned 
in time. He executed his movement, 
and when lie found that the governor 
had adjourned his, lie was forced to 
retreat alter suffering heavy losses. 
This event caused an emotion which 
you will easily understand ; but it must 
not be exaggerated. The governor has 
taken possession of the plateau of Ayron, 
where he has strongly fortified himself, 
ami where he intends to continue his 
operations. The danger is that we may 
meet there a warned and concentrated 
enemy. You may imagine our anxiety. 
If we fail, we are doubly lost; but this 
is not the time to be discouraged." 

General Ducrot had marshalled forth 
his soldiers of the " second army of 
Paris." as he called them, with a fiery 
proclamation. In this document he told 
the troops that the action had been pre- 
pared for months ; that the commander- 
in-chief had got together more than four 
hundred cannon, two-thirds of which were 
of heavy calibre ; that one hundred and 
eighty thousand men, well-armed and 
equipped, ought logo anywhere ; that the 
enemy was descending to the banks of 
the Loire with his best soldiers, where 
they were all to be beaten by the newly 
organized French armies; that courage 
and confidence would win the day ; and 
that, as for himself, he was firmly re- 
solved, and took an oath before the 
army and the nation to return into 
Paris •• dead or victorious." 

These were brave words, which put a 
certain fever into the blood of the soldiers, 
who felt that the fate of the country de- 
pended upon the success of their efforts. 
Poor General Ducrot, after the failure of 
his operations, was roundly abused and 
much ridiculed because he had not kept 
his word ; but, if he did not succeed in 



EUROPE LV STORM AXD CALM. 



341 



gaining a permanent victory, ho did 
everything that he could to win a 
soldier's death, before returning to 
Paris. Dozens of soldiers testify to 
his bravery in battle, and on the field 
of Champigny he pushed into the very 
ranks of the enemy, and broke his sword 
in a Saxon's breast. But his life was 
charmed. He could not die, and he was 
obliged to swallow his fine words, and to 
live for many years afterwards a soured 
and disappointed, but unquestionably an 
honorable and capable soldier. 

The failure of the French to cross the 
Marne in the night of the 28th gave 
the Germans twenty-four hours in which 
to concentrate fresh troops upon the 
weak portions of their lines, and, by 
sunset on the 29th, all hope of breaking 
through the point towards which the 
French were directing their endeavors 
was gone. On the 30th of November, 
early in the morning, the two first French 
divisions crossed the river, and pushed 
the enemy back to the first slopes of 
Champigny. A series of battles and ar- 
tillery duels took place along the plateau 
of Avron, on the heights of Montmedy, 
Creteil, Joinville-le-Pont, Champigny, 
Noisy-le-Grand, and Villiers-sur-Marue. 
The Wurtemburg troops, when they 
were first struck by the vigorous French 
attack, were sadly demoralized. I had 
ocular evidence of that, and had they 
been unaided they would have opened 
their ranks and let the besieged through, 
on their way to the junction with Gam- 
betta's forces. But, as soon as they 
began to fall back, they found that they 
were supported by the Saxons, and by 
regiment after regiment of Prussians, 
coming up in solid order. 

So they rallied, and pushed away the 
French, who had already taken posses- 
sion of the summit of Montmedy. As 
soon as they saw the action turning in 



their favor, they came forward with loud 
shouts and flourished their guns over 
their heads like madmen. Doubtless 
the}* were a little ashamed of having 
broken ranks shortly before, and had 
determined to make up for it, now that 
they felt safe. In front of them there 
had come up undisciplined French 
troops, who fell back in considerable 
disorder upon Creteil. But one of their 
generals was brave even to utter rash- 
ness, and was shot down within thirty 
yards from the Prussian lines, still crying 
out, " Forward! " This energetic officer, 
who had won a high reputation in the 
African and Italian campaigns, was the 
talk of all the German soldiers for the 
next few days. When the first charge 
on Montmedy occurred, he went into it 
nourishing his cap on the end of his 
sabre ; and his men would have followed 
him to destruction. lie went through 
the first charge, although a pistol ball 
had broken one of his wrists. He was 
the man who, when he was slowly dying, 
a day or two after the battle, from the 
numerous wounds which he had received, 
said to the soldiers who surrounded his 
bed, " If we still have an army that 
knows how to die, France may be saved." 

On this same day of the 30th there 
was a tremendous battle in and around 
the villages of Bry-sur-Marne and Cham- 
pigny. In Bry-sur-Marne the battle was 
from house to house, from alley-way to 
alley-way; and here the French Zouaves, 
who had won such a bad reputation at 
the outset of the siege, in flying from the 
table-land of Chatillon, fought with ad- 
mirable courage, and redeemed their 
honor. 

All the time that this hand-to-hand 
lighting in the villages was going on 
there was a perfectly terrific artillery 
duel between batteries of the contending 
forces. Having repossessed themselves 



342 



EUROPE IX STon.ir AND CALM. 



of Montmedy, the Germans had suc- 
ceeded in shutting the door which had 
been momentarily opened on the road to 
Versailles; and they bolted and haired 
it sii effectually :is to have no fears that 
it would he opened again. 

Meantime the French were creeping 
up the heights of Villiers and Chenne- 
vieres, disputing fool by loot the blood- 
stained way, hiding among the vines and 
stopping, now and then, — poor, half- 
starved fellows! — to pluck the frozen 
grapes which hung convenient to their 
grasp. It was slow work coming up 
these hills; and it was half-past four in 
the afternoon before the French bat- 
talions got to the walls of the park at 
Villiers, where the Prussians had made 
their retreat. 

When once the French troops were 
well upon the hill, a long and terrible 
line of musketry sent forth such a sweep- 
ing fire of death that, hundreds upon 
hundreds of men fell before they could 
reach a cover; and the scene, for a few 
minutes after this army of on-rushing 
French, mad for victory and wild for 
revenge, was transformed in the twink- 
lingof an eye into groaning and writhing 
masses Of wounded men, heaped upon 
their dead comrades, was one of the 
most frightful and startling of the whole 
century. When the sun went down 

that night, the sky was red as bl 1, 

as if the dread colors of the battle-field 
were reflected in it. Then silence fell 
upon the whole country side. The 
groaning of the cannon, the harsh 
.shrieks of the mit ruilleuses, ihe hurrahs 
of the Wuiteinl lingers and their sturdy 
allies, who had come up just in time to 

save t lioin. the cries of the wounded, — 
all died away, as if the shades of the 
winter twilight, rapidly falling over the 
scene of carnage, had blotted it out, 
and swept it into eternal oblivion. 



It is not too much to cay, that, on 
thai night, the forces on both sides 
ceased their efforts from utter exhaus- 
tion. Every nerve in both armies had 
been strained to the utmost for more 
than thirty-six hours. There were Ger- 
man troops in the light who had not hail 
a moment's rest for all that time. A 
philosophical Wiirteiiibiirger, who was in 
the whole Villiers fight, — a kind of ram- 
bling encounter, which lasted for four or 
live days, — in writing from Villiers to 
some friends on tin/ 5th of December, 
and describing the task of retaking Mont- 
nieslv. while the German troops were 
subjected to a crushing lire from the 
torts, said, •• You can have no idea of 
the frightful rain of shells which we en- 
countered here. It is a veritable miracle 
that ourwhole battery was not destroyed 
simply by the immense numerical supe- 
riority of the French batteries. We tired 
upon them with precision and coolness, 
lint in less than half an hour we had lost 
eight men and fifteen horses. My horse 
was struck down by a shell live seconds 
after I dismounted from it. Mitrail- 
leuses were placed at a short distance 
from us, and their bullets went hissing 
above our heads like a swarm of bees. 
We had to hand together, and get into 
position a hundred paces farther away 
behind the wall of a park, which we soon 
had in a state of defense." 

This little paragraph gives au ade- 
quate idea of the manner in which the 
Germans alwa\s availed themselves of 
shelter. In many an action German 
troops were scarcely seen at all by the 
enemy. If there was a wall convenient, 
they had loop-holed it; a forest, they 
were hidden within it ; a barricade was 
a God-send to them; a cemetery, a ditch, 
— anything which they could transform 
into a temporary fortification, — was in- 
stantly ami invariably adopted. " I 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



343 



a 



F 






< 
F 




344 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



thank God," said this Gorman soldier, 
" thai I am still alive. I shall never 
forget that day. Some of the Prussian 
officers said tliatit was a much worse affair 
than that of Gravelotte. The soil was 
fairly turned up by the French shells. 
For the first time I understand what it 
means to l>e outside of cover under an 
artillery lire. On the 30th we could not 
occupy the villages of Champigny and 
Bry-sur-Marne, for when the foils began 



ribly, and hundreds of them were unlit 
for battle next day. Trees were cut 
down and great fires were built, both 
because General Trochu wished to make 
the enemy think that an immense army 
was encamped near him, and because the 
men were literally freezing. The hor- 
rors of that night for the wouuded men 
surpass all the powers of description. 

Next day there was no fighting, but 
early on the morning of the 2d of De- 








THE PRIESTS' AMBULANCE CORrS AT THE BATTLE OF CHAMPIGNY. 



to concentrate their lire upon them they 
were too hot to stay in ; all the more be- 
cause we were attacked by forces quad- 
ruple our own in numbers." 

When the French got into Champigny 
the\ found it in a frightful condition. 
The Saxons, who had been occupying it 
for some time, were greatly annoyed at 
being disturbed, and they smashed every- 
thing: mirrors, costly furniture, — re- 
specting nothing whatever. Nextmorn- 
ing, the weather, which bad been mild, 
suddenly became very cold. The half-fed 
and excited French troops suffered ter- 



cember the Saxons and Wurtemburg- 
ers toeether fell upon the towns of 15ry- 
sur-Marne and Champigny ; and this 
was a part of the deliberate attempt of 
the Germans to throw General Ducrot's 
army back upon the right bank of the 
Marne anil to push it into the river, or 
compel it to complete disorganization 
and confused retreat, which would render 
any future operations on its part impos- 
sible. 

The French troops at first fought mag- 
nificently against the vast numbers of 
the enemy, which now flocked down upon 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



345 



them. Fresh reinforcements were sent 
up, and the contest promised to be long, 
and possibly to be decided in favor of 
the Parisians. When the new German 
column came out of the woods of Villiers 
and began to push the French troops 
back upon Bry-sur-Marne, and towards 
the River Maine, the French lines wav- 
ered. General Ducrot and General Tro- 
chu made desperate efforts to rally them. 
The great military park on the 
plateau of Avron sent forth a 
formidable fire to cut gaps in 
the German lines ; and at last 
one hundred thousand men, 
who had swarmed for an hour 
or two on the hillsides, — Prus- 
sians, Bavarians, Saxons, and 
Wurtemburgers, — hesitated, 
and finally were forced to halt 
and to withdraw a little. 

At four o'clock in the after- 
noon the}' were found throwing 
up intrenchments, as if fearing 
that they who had been at- 
tacked might suddenly be the 
attacking party. The French 
had managed to get about half 
of Ghampigny ; they had retaken 
house after house, and barricade 
after barricade; but the German prison- 
ers told them that there were at least 
one hundred and fifty thousand Prus- 
sians massed not far away ; and, after 
the numerous arrivals of fresh troops 
that they had seen, they began to believe 
this statement. General Trochu, how- 
ever, claimed the day as a victory for 
the French armies; and General Ducrot. 
who had been wounded on this day by a 
splinter of a shell, after having ridden 
right through the German lines two or 
three times, still expressed hopes that 
the operations would be successful. 

Paris was electrified by the despatches 
which came to it from General Trochu 



and his aids. The Government of 
National Defense papered the walls 
with encouraging proclamations. On 
the next day came a sad surprise, anil 
one which at first stupefied and finally 
exasperated the Parisians. On the 4th 
of December General Ducrot announced 
to the besieged within the walls of the 
capital, by means of a proclamation 
issued to his own troops, that he had 




EPISODE 

PARIS.- 



brought his army 
back across the 
Maine, because 
he was convinced 
that new efforts 
in a direction 

where the enemy had had plenty of 
time to concentrate all its forces, and 
to prepare all its means of action, 
would be useless. "Had I persisted 
in this line of attack," lie said, " I 
should uselessly have sacrificed many 
thousands of brave men, and. instead 
of serving the cause of deliverance, I 
should seriously have compromised it." 
Perhaps it required more moral bravery 



3415 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



on the part of General Ducrot to do just 
what he did than to have plunged anew 
into a battle which could have had but 
one end. — tlic partial or complete anni- 
hilation of his army on the banks of the 
Manic 

The whole country for miles around 
was filled with the marks of the san- 
guinary struggle; the villages were in 
ruins ; the hills were piled with heaps of 
mangled corpses. ( )n the French side 
the priests and the volunteer ambulance 
men were busy in bearing away to Paris 
those of the soldiers who were not 
mortally wounded, and preparing decent 
places in the farm-houses and cottages 
Cor those whose sands of life were fast 
running out. On the frozen earth alone; 
the heights beyond Champigny and 
Yilliers, the German dead were still 
tying in piles and rows on the .'id and 
Ith of December, although burial parties 
worked vigorously during the nights, and 
alter the fight of the 30th they labored 
during the whole of the 1st, determined 
to conceal as much as possible their 
losses from the enemy. As a French 
writer has tersely said, in his impartial 
and careful account of this series of 
lights, ten thousand dead men of the two 
races were strewn along the frozen hills, 
and nothing had been done to change the 
destiny of Paris. The blockade con- 
tinued. General Ducrot had reentered 
alive and victorious in vain. 

At first Paris could not believe that 
this was tin' end of its great hope. It 
did not doubt that military operations 
would be continued at another point. 
Very likely the attack at Champigny had 
been only a feint. We should soon hear 
of lights elsewhere, and the besieged, not 
doubting that the Loire army was near 
at hand, looked with confidence for the 
soldiers of ( General A u relies (le l'a lac lines. 



But on the evening of the fith of Decem- 
ber the Parisians learned by a procla- 
mation that letters hail been exchanged 
between General Von Moltke and 
General Trochn. The German general 
informed General Trochu, in a note of 
icy politeness ami Spartan brevity, that 
the army of the Loire had been defeated 
on the previous day near Orleans and 
that the- city had been occupied by the 
victorious troops. 

The loss of the French during this 
series of battles was six thousand and 
thirty men, of which four hundred and 
fourteen were officers. The Germans 
lost much more heavily, and for some 
time after the siege the French insisted 
that the affair of Champigny and Villiers 
had cost Germany fifteen thousand sol- 
diers ; but this estimate was greatly 
exaggerated. 

Some days after the arrival of General 
Von Moltke's letter in Paris, the Govern- 
ment of National Defense learned that 
the enemy hail spoken truly; yet the 
army of the Loire was only cut in two. 
It was neither captured nor annihilated. 
Paris took heart a little. General 
Chanzy was still capable of a good re- 
sistance ; General Faidherbe was mak- 
ing a capital tight in the north ; and 
General Bourbaki, at Bourges, was pre- 
paring to assume the offensive with 
vigor. General Trochu now shut him- 
self up atVincennes. where lie said that 
he was so busy with the reorganization 
of his army that he could give no atten- 
tion to the interior administration of 
Paris. Starvation ami bitter winter 
weather had come at the close of an un- 
successful sortie, to urge the Parisians 
to yield. 

Yet they held out with a bravery 
which has never been surpassed ill the 
history of the world. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Ml 



CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. 

Panoramic View of the German Investment Lines. — Mavgency. — -Gonesse. — Chelles. — The Various Corps 
and Their Appearance. — Pictures from Versailles during the Occupation. — The Snow. — The 
Landwehrsmen. — The Christinas Festivities. 



CONTINUING our journey, we found 
at Margency, which was simply a 
hamlet attached to a ch&teau, the head- 
quarters of the Crown Prince of Saxony, 
who had under his command the Fourth, 
Sixth, and Guard corps. Our intention 
was to remain here for some days; but 
the odious weather and the wretched ac- 
commodation forbade it. So we pushed 
on to Gonesse, the head-quarters of 
Prince August von Wurtemburg. Our 
r< inte lay through Villiers-le-Bel, — a name 
dear to American and English artists, — 
and through Sarcelles. The Fourth 
corps joined the Guard at Groslay, a 
village just outside the limits of Mont- 
morency, and extended to Clichy-sur- 
Bois, not far from Chelles, and the scene 
of the important struggle just recounted 
on the banks of the Marne and the 
Seine. St. Brice, nearby, one of the oc- 
cupied points, was celebrated as one of 
Bossuet's many residences. To the right 
was Pierrefitte, still occupied by the 
French, and a little less than two miles 
and a half from the outer French line of 
defense. 

The Guard, without doubt the noblest 
body of men in the German army, had 
already suffered terribly in the war; and 
it was said at Gonesse, though I know- 
not how truly, that this corps alone had 
lost mote men in the struggles around 
Metz than the whole war of 1866 hud 
cost Prussia. It was a proud and fiery 
corps, composed ill large degree of per- 
sons of rank. But a few days before I 



had met in Versailles a young officer, 
just about to leave one of the Uhlan 
regiments of the Guard because he was 
not a baron and every other officer in 
the regiment was. There were some 
regiments in which neatly every man hail 
a title. To be introduced to an officer 
at Gonesse without hearing him signalled 
as " Herr Graf" would have at once at- 
tracted attention to him. Many of the 
officers stationed here were extremely 
young, but nearly all were men of high- 
I needing and culture. Many a man in 
coarse uniform possessed a larger in- 
come than the proprietor of the costly 
villa in which he was temporarily lodged. 
The officers had very generally estab- 
lished in each of the little towns com- 
modious restaurants called "Officers' 
Casinos," and had pressed into their 
service some few unwilling French cooks 
who had remained in the neighborhood. 
One saw many an officer spending more 
for the bottle of wine which he drank for 
his breakfast than he received as pay for 
soldiering for a week. Private pockets, as 
well as government's treasury, were well 
depleted. The French charged enormous 
prices. Everything was at least triple 
or quadruple its former value. Potatoes 
and vegetables of all kinds were most 
difficult to obtain. The officers con- 
tented themselves with black bread, anil 
made up for the absence of beer by 
swallowing numerous bottles of the or- 
dinary wine of the country, when no 
other was to be had. 



348 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



At Gonesse we had a pretty severe 
trial of our nerves, because we had 
settled down to breakfast in a corner 
of tin' town which had, unfortunately, 
been selected that morning for prac- 
tice liv the gunners in the neighbor- 
ing French fort, and the shells fell with 
a recklessness which was quite appall- 
ing. Fortunately a dense fog hindered 
the gunners from doing much damage, 
in the neighborl d of Gonesse we en- 
countered, for the first time, a very grave 
difficulty, but one which we afterwards 
met at every turn in making trips around 
Paris. Whenever we asked a French- 
man to show us the way. as we were 
naturally puzzled by the labyrinth of 
large and small roads, he always mis- 
directed us. This, at first, we could 
hardly believe, until we lost a couple of 
hours by trusting to cur French guides. 

Presently we noted that the Prussians 
had the whole country classified into 
various districts, traversed by certain 
routes ; ami these were plainly indicated 
by huge signs marked in ink, on the 
stone fence corners. " Colonenweg" 
signified I hat the road where the sign 
appeared was the proper one for heavy 
munition and provision trains; and at 
every town's entrance and exit one 
found the way to and from each town 
within a radius of twenty miles properly 
shown on a little map. Other German 
corps had not the same thoroughness 
of system noticeable among the Prus- 
sians. For instance, the Saxons, who 
lay just beyond Gonesse, rarely marked 
the way so thai a stranger could find 
it. The French, at the beginning of 
the siege of Paris, had turned all the 
sign-boards wrong end first, or, when 
that had been impossible, hail taken 
them down and pitched them into the 
nearest stream. Wherever the Prus- 
sians had thrown across the river at an 



important point what they called a 
Kriegsbrucke, that is, a pontoon bridge, 
for war purposes, they had noted with 
the greatest care the various routes lead- 
ing to it. especially for wagon trains and 
convoys. 

From Gonesse we pushed forward, 
getting just within the first line of in- 
vestment to Sevran, a little town badly 
punished by shells. On our way thither 
we had an opportunity to observe the 
manner in which the German outposts 
fortified their positions. Breastworks 
were thrown up almost everywhere, con- 
structed out of every available material. 
Where roads failed in the fields, artifi- 
cial ones had been made out of the un- 
threshed wheat, of which great heaps 
garnished tin; roadsides. Even the roads 
were doubly and triply barricaded at 
certain points, so that the French, in 
making a sortie, would be sure to get 
themselves under a deadly lire. " Alarm 
houses" were frequent alone' this route. 
Tin 1 Prussians hail created facilities for 
seeing almost every movement that any 
considerable body of Frenchmen could 
make near Paris, and could always pre- 
pare themselves splendidly for defense. 

Aunet. an insignificant village near 
Sevran, was only noticeable from the 
fad that numbers of the Guard corps 
had illustrated their talent with numer- 
ous drawings on the walls of the houses. 
The signs that had been placed to indi- 
cate the way were sometimes rendered 
very amusing by the little sketches 
which the several visitors to the indica- 
tear had drawn. At Sevran we passed 
the Canal de L'Ourcq, cleverly turned 
from its course by a (banian engineer at 
the beginning of the investment, and 
the bridge over which we went had been 
barricaded, the side towards Paris being 
protected with doors taken from the 
granaries. 



EUROrE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



The scenery through which we now 
passed was of dazzling loveliness. The 
snow still decked the trees with crystals, 
and a temperate sun threw a genial, but 
not melting, light upon this fairy splen- 
dor. Hills were indistinguishable, and 
seemed to fade into the sky. A brush- 
heap became an opalescent mass, and the 
far-off forests, where symmetrical trees 
rose in long avenues, were fantastic as 
dream-foliage. Here we were skirting 
the noble and ancient wood of Bondy, 
where old King Childerie met his unhappy 
fate, and were drawing gradually towards 
the banks of the charming Marne. 

At Livry we took the wrong road, 
and had gone two miles straight towards 
one of the forts before we discovered 
our mistake. Had it not been for a com- 
pass I do not know what would have 
happened, for we should probably have 
got into the French lines. At Livry, one 
of Madame de Sevigne's favorite haunts, 
there was nothing noticeable beyond the 
industry of the soldiers, who were none 
of them lolling about or playing at cards, 
but were all engaged in some kind of 
hard work. Carpenters were plying their 
trade; blacksmiths were soiling their 
uniforms over used-up horses ; the cooks 
had improvised the accustomed cap, the 
sign of their profession, out of the news- 
papers sent them from Germany; and 
the officers were giving orders as busily 
as the captain of a Cunarder in a gale. 

We were soon at C'liehv-sous-Bois, 
where the Guard corps ceased and the 
Saxons were stationed. The First in- 
fantry division had its head-quarters 
here in a huge chdteau, ami some officers 
told us that their corps extended as far 
as the left bank of the Marne on to the 
scene of the recent fight. The Saxons 
were a ruddy, healthy, but dowdy look- 
ing, set of soldiers. The officers were 
models of elegauce and refined courtesy. 



There was, however, a lack of that 
thoroughness of occupation which we 
had remarked among the exclusively 
Prussian troops ; and, on the whole, from 
this point to where the gallant Second 
corps began, we could remark at every 
turn the superiority of Prussia to the 
sister states in military training. 

From Clichy we rode on to Mont Ver- 
meil, and thence through the charming 
forest of Chelles. The grand old abbey 
of Chelles has twice been ravaged by the 
English, — in 1358 and L429, — and once 
entirely overturned by a hurricane. But 
it has always been restored by pious 
hands, and is one of the architectural 
wonders of France. Chelles is pictu- 
resquely situated, and stately poplars 
border the plains which stretch out from 
the town. Here we got into trouble with 
an officer, who hail cautioned us against 
going over the upper of the two pontoon 
bridges which he had caused to he built 
over the Marne, and we had mistaken 
his direction and crossed the wrong 
bridge. The result was just what he 
had expected. We drew the tire from 
Forts Noisy and Rosnv, and that un- 
fortunate bridge was raked with shell 
for twenty minutes afterwards, in such 
a manner that we were uot surprised at 
the officer's rage. Our last glimpse of 
him was as he stood jumping up and 
down on the banks of the Marne, and 
shaking his fists at us, while the whole 
atmosphere was charged with three-cor- 
nered German imprecations. lie was so 
excited that he took no care for his own 
safety, and it was by no means pleasant 
to stand under this storm of the tre- 
mendous projectiles launched by the 
forts. 

We talked with the Wurtemburgers 
who hail been in the recent battle. These 
were stolid, tranquil, and clumsy men, 
whom the French never shook from their 



350 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



posts, nor blew away with artillery, nor 
frightened with bayonet charges. " It 
was not much <>!' n fight," said one : 
•• they could not dig us out." The simile 

was a g 1 (inc. 

Before us lay the lovely Maine, the 

suow-clad branches ou its banks reflected 

ill the (lark blue of its water, anil here 

ami there a little island half hidden under 
Hie sweeping boughs of the ancient trees. 
Bevond the bridge we found a pioneer 
guard seated around a pleasant camp- 
fire. We rode to Champs; thence to 
Malnoue, ami so over the barren battle- 
field on which the Wurtemburgers had 
done such valiant work. Here the 
country was desolate. In no village 
could we find a. wisp of hay for our 
horses : mi soldier had enough for his 
own beast. At Champs we found the 
peasants so sharp in their expression 
of hatred to us as their supposed foes 
that we were not sorry to find plenty of 

soldiers in the vicinity. 

We pushed on from Malnoue to La 
Queue-en-Brie, a little town which bore 
indisputable marks of bard usage during 
the recent, fight. This bad been an 
asvlum for the wounded, and the ground 
in nearly all the yards was strewn with 
blood-stained straw. Every available 
article of furniture hail been smashed 
for firewood. It was not until the cold 
weather came that the Prussians began 
to do veritable damage to the costly 
bouses in which they were quartered. 
The Germans were in a country where 
wood is scarcer than in any other sec- 
tion of Europe, with the exception of a 
few noble, ancient, forests preserved by 
the state. Stone being the exclusive 
building material, it was only the palings, 
the oak carvings, and the furniture upon 
which the cold and impatient soldiers 
could rely. 

From La Queue-en-Brie we went to 



Boudy St. Leger, where the stalwart 
Pomeranian Second regiment was quar- 
tered alone- the road, and as we were 
nearing the latter town we caught a 
charming glimpse of Paris. From the 
high hill which we climbed just before 
reaching a forest surrounding Baron 
Ilottinguer's chdteau, the sun strug- 
gled out of a cloud under which he had 
been sulking for some time, and touched 
the distant dome of the InvaliilcS, SO 
near and yet so far. We could distin- 
guish the twin towers of Notre Dame 
and the dimly outlined dome of the Pan- 
theon. Smoke and flames arose from 
numbers of villages which had just been 
Bred by shells from Forts Ivry and 
Charenton. On the high plateau at the 
entrance to the wood of Bondy the Ger- 
mans had established a post of observa- 
tion. From Bondy to the old bridge of 
Charenton. almost under the very walls 
of Paris, there is a direct road, along 
which there had been much lighting. 
The Pomeranians were sore and angry, 
for their losses in the action in which 
they had just played such an important 
part, bad been very heavy. Here, at 
Bondy, the massing of troops was tre- 
mendous. It was evident that another 
sortie was expected, and that the two 
hundred thousand men wdio had recently 
been called under arms in Germany 
were fast arriving in the field. Soldiers 
swarmed in the forests and in the villages 
from this point upward to Versailles. 
The lines which bad recently been thin 
were now more than necessarily strong. 
It seemed madness for the besieged to 
try and dislodge this enemy, confident 
from his long succession of victories and 
so strong in numbers. 

On the way from La Queue to Bondy 
we met long trains of sick and wounded 
coming back from Orleans. There were 
several hundred wagons tilled with poor 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



351 



fellows who seemed in every stage of 
mortal illness. The melancholy train 
wound its way painfully along, a few 
Uhlans riding here and there between the 
transports calmly smoking their pipes. 
Along the road we observed the field- 
telegraph service of both the Bavarian 
and Prussian armies, the Prussian line 
easily distinguishable from the others 
by its black and white slender poles, 
capable of being put down with great 
rapidity ; and the Prussians did not take 
the trouble to give it a guard, announc- 
ing in each village that any one who 
trifled with it should be shot. The Bava- 
rians built their lines more substantially, 
but also exercised very trifling precau- 
tions against its cutting. The lines had 
rarely been interrupted since they were 
placed. The majority of the soldiers 
whom we saw in Bondy had been before 
Metz, and were among the first to arrive 
in front of Paris from that point. They 
were usually stalwart, handsome men, 
dark-haired and fiery-eyed ; and we were 
told that they were one of the special 
prides of the Prussian army. 

We returned to Versailles by the first 
line of investment part of the way, finish- 
ing our journey in the third, quite in the 
rear, where the Bavarians were stationed. 
Shortly after leaving Bondy we left the 
Second corps behind us, and on our ar- 
rival at Villeneuve St. George found 
ourselves among the members of the 
Sixth Prussian corps. At Villeneuve St. 
George the Prussians had two extem- 
porized bridges across the Seine, one of 
pontoon and the other of trestle-work, 
both capable of sustaining any weight, 
and both built in a miraculously short 
time. Here, and at Villeneuve le Iioi, 
was a complete overturn of houses ; 
and I do not blame the dwellers in 
Parisian suburbs for abominating the 
Germans, whom they naturally accused 



of many excesses, which were perhaps 
inevitable. 

On the way in we passed, at Wissons, 
a gigantic park of artillery, about two 
hundred guns, which the artillerymen 
were beginning to move. We found 
that it was not wise to ask questions as 
to where those guns were going, and 
drew our own conclusions as to the 
probable commencement of the bom- 
bardment. 

In Versailles we found the customary 
programme, — funerals, serenades, horse 
exercising, patrols, concerts, and dinners 
at the Cafe de Neptune, in progress — 
exactly as we had left them. 

Not long after our tour around Paris 
we heard that the Prussians had entered 
Venddme, and there was a rumor that 
the French were massing for another 
outbreak in the vicinity of Champigny. 
But the attention of the Germans was 
concentrated on the bombardment, and 
endeavors at first made to conceal prepa- 
rations for it were the source of much 
misery for all journalists attached to the 
head-quarters. There was a momentary 
enlivening of the monotony of the life at 
Versailles by the creation of a " corre- 
spondent's question." It was brought 
about by the indiscretion of some cavalry 
men, who arrested, at Etampes, one or 
two English journalists, and a gentleman 
who happened to be a Queen's commis- 
sioner. These worthy gentlemen were 
brought into Versailles tied with ropes, 
which ropes were attached to the saddles 
of their captors ; and they were treated 
as common spies, and much crowded and 
hustled by onion-breathed Teutons, until 
they were able to prove their identity. 
It was rather startling, and, at the same 
time, amusing, to recognize in the French 
spies whom we hail been summoned to 
see these gentlemen, who were supposed 
to be perfectly well known as neutrals 



:;;»•„' 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and personages of distinction. Many 
sharp criticisms having been passed on 
the arrogance of officers who had been 
engaged in this arrest, a personage high 
in authority was said to have remarked 
that, if the correspondents wished to 
magnify the matter into one of inter- 
national importance, the simplest thing 
would be t<> send them all away from 
head-quarters; moreover, that they had 
been indiscreet in disclosing to the world 
the whereabouts of the camion which 
were to convince the Parisians of the 
error of resistance. 

This teapot storm was soon over, and 
our attention was directed to the dele- 
gation of members of the German par- 
liament, who had come up to present 
addresses to King William concerning 
the title of Emperor of ( termany, recently 

ottered him, on the K.llll of 1 >eeellll ier. 

This delegation arrived, a motley array 
of black, white, and gray, twenty wagon 
loads of German burghers, who carried 
their festal mien into the wards of the 
very hospitals, and whose grotesque self- 
consciousness provoked bitter smiles 
from the French, too well-bred to 
indulge in open comment. On that 
day I saw Count Bismarck in his 
carriage ; he looked ill. and seemed to 
have grown ten years older in a few 
days. 

The 18th was a gala day tor the Ger- 
mans. Thousands of soldiers thronged 
t he si reels all day, and went in reluctantly 
when the orange sunset glow began to 
tinge the west. There were music, 

glitter of uniforms, prancing of horses, 
and pomp of funerals, as if Death 
liked to lie at the feast, grinning with 
the rest. Death was present in the 
morning, with his procession of forty 
collins draped with white, the Tartessian 
colors of mourning ; and the rumbling 
thunder of the guns in the distance re- 



minded the furloughed men that death 
was still their near neighbor. 

The court preacher at the chapel that 
morning chose for his text these words : 
•■The peace of Cod passeth all under- 
standing.'" But the deputies and 
diplomats, who had come up from Ger- 
many, although they attended the sermon, 
paid hut little attention to it. They 
were Iium' with their anticipations of the 
royal interview. They were mainly jolly, 
beer-loving, rubicund men, from quiet 
country towns, where Paris and Ver- 
sailles were popularly thought twin gates 
of Hades. There were a few noble- 
looking old men, with white mustaches 
and flowing hair, but rather awkward in 
comparison with the more accomplished 
military men. 

There was a great struggle for equi- 
pages on that day, but the most dignified 
members had to appear in a held post- 

Wagon ; and two aged and respectable 
members of Parliament were conveyed 
into the royal presence in a vehicle so 
much resembling a furniture-van that 
even the officers laughed. There was a 
grand reception at the Prefecture, at 
which all the deputies were personally 
presented to the King after the presenta- 
tion of their addresses, and crowds 
gathered to see tin 1 princes roll away in 
their carriages, and Von Podbielski and 
Moltke in their helmets, stern and grave ; 
finally the Prefecture doors closed with 
a bang, and the tall sentinels began to 
pace back and forth, as if moved by 
wires. The King drove out shortly 
afterwards, looking extremely well; and 
I observed with some astonishment that 
numbers of Frenchmen saluted him ; 
whether it was because the title of 
Emperor, which they knew had just 
been presented for his consideration. 
overwhelmed them, I know not. 

In the evening eighty persons sat 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



353 



down to a. dinner of great magnificence. 
Ou the night of the 18th there was a 
terrific cannonading, which the wind 
seemed to bring nearer than usual, and 
the deputies had a genuine fright. Win- 
dows rattled in Versailles. The people 
turned out in great excitement to dis- 
cover what was going on. The King, it 
was said, desired to accept the Emperor's 
diadem, but wished to run the gauntlet 
of a vote in the Chambers first. 

Winter now came in earnest. The 
great pond and fountain basins in the 
palace gardens were ice-bound. The 
officers had taken to their fur cloaks, 
and the princes, who had dawdled to and 
fro in the long avenues on their well- 
groomed horses, now scurried away to 
breakfast in the shabby hacks still left 
in Versailles. No less than six vigorous 
attempts had been made by the French 
to break out, the most signal effort being 
made near the edge of the forest of 
Bondy, where the positions had received 
a wonderful strengthening since the 
Champigny fight. The artillery practice 
of the Prussian guns in the vicinity of 
St. Cloud was exceedingly good, and 
one battery especially distinguished it- 
self. 

A few days before Christmas the non- 
combatants at Versailles were treated to 
a novel sensation, to be expected in 
war time, but somewhat startling after 
the dulness of head-quarters' life. While 
chatting quietly with a friend in his own 
apartments, in the Place Iloche, I ob- 
served the sudden appearance of a body 
of cavalry in the square, and at the same 
time the people of the house came run- 
ning to tell us that a band of soldiers 
was mounting the stairs. The officer 
in charge arrived, curt and suspicious, 
posted sentries at all the exits, and we 
were shortly desired to state whether or 
not we had any concealed weapons. 



Convincing the officer that we had none, 
we were released, and learned from one 
of the soldiers that they were looking 
after Francs-Tireurs ; from another, that 
weapons only were the object of the 
search ; and from a third, what proved 
to be true, that a conspiracy for a revolt 
within Versailles had been discovered, 
and that there was a general search for 
the weapons which were to have done 
the enemy damage. At almost the same 
minute in the same hour every house 
in the town was entered, and searched 
from cellar to garret. At the Hotel 
des Reservoirs, the head-quarters of 
hundreds of officers, correspondents, 
and diplomats, a young lieutenant of 
nineteen had taken charge, and told 
the rotund and rubicund landlord that 
if he found anything suspicious in his 
cellar he would have him shot in his 
own court-yard. But this excessive 
wrath on the part of the baby officer 
only provoked a smile from the host. A 
large collection of arms was actually 
found in Versailles ; and in one of the 
houses, where an old lady solemnly de- 
clared that she had never had a weapon 
of any kind under her roof, an acute 
soldier stuck his bayonet into the ceiling 
and three guns dropped down. Some 
enterprising German had set on foot a 
story that a band of desperadoes had 
concocted a plan to carry off the King, 
Counts Moltke and Bismarck, and all 
the other important personages, and offer 
them in exchange for immediate and 
unconditional peace. Ridiculous as this 
story seemed, it found general cre- 
dence among the rank and file of the Ger- 
mans, who professed great indignation. 
The new Landwehrsmcn coming up 
from Germany about this time were the 
best specimens of soldiers that we hud 
seeu. They looked as if they had been 
created by some fairy expressly for the 



354 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



occasion. There was one regiment of 
the Landwehrsmen of the Guard sta- 
tioned not far from Versailles, in which 
the fathers owned to seven thousand 
and three children, a little more than 
three apiece. From this one may im- 
agine the number of Christmas-boxes 
which had been coming by the field post 
fur the ten days before the great festi- 
val. 

" Our October fires now flicker before 
Paris," boastfully said the German 
press, while the last glimmer of autumn 
sunset was falling athwart the spiles 
of Notre Dame. Neither German press 
nor people expected that the Decem- 
ber fires would send up their sparks 
around extemporized Christmas-trees 
in the camps before Paris ; but, when 
it was found that the siege was to 
be long, the good wives at home 
made ample provision for their absent 
husbands, fathers, and brothers, and 
enormous trains bringing the gifts of 
love came rolling through Strasbourg 
and Nancy and Epernay, and up to 
Lagny, where they discharged their 
comforting freight every day into the 
provision wagons, which moved with 
the same discipline that marked the 
conduct of the whole army. The result 
was. that, by the arrival of Christmas- 
tide, the thousands upon thousands of 
Germans wire provided with the ma- 
terial for the same festivities that they 
would have held at home. 

The chorus of the guns of Paris on 
Christmas Eve was superb. Through 
the clear, frosty air the grand baying 
and barking of the dogs of war echoed 
so loudly that it almost drowned the 
chorals of the jolly Weinuacht songs 
that the few Germans who had been 
allowed to leave their regiments and 
dine at head-quarters were permitted 
to sing. Parties of officers who had 



been permitted to leave their bad food 
and wretched lodgings in the deserted 
towns around the besieged capital 
came in to thaw out over bottles of wine 
or bowls of punch. Few, if any, boast- 
ful allusions were made in these parties 
to the victories gained over the French. 
The stout Landwehr regiments in the 
neighborhood, which had as many Christ- 
mas-trees as companies, had their pres- 
ents distributed by the hands of their 
officers. The festivities were simple 
and hearty. A large room in some de- 
serted house was chosen for each com- 
pany, and there the tree was placed and 
the candles were lighted ; songs and 
recitations made 141 the balance of the 
entertainment. Most of the soldiers 
at, the outposts had wine to think. Iu 
town the day was celebrated at the 
Prefecture and at the residence of the 
Crown Prince. At the King's there 
were two Christmas-trees, and some of 
the presents given and received by the 
royal family were of great, value. The 
Crown Prince distributed the gifts from 
his tree with his own hands. Much 
gossip was excited by the absence of 
the Duke of Saxe Coburg from the 
assembly of the other royal personages. 
He was the only exception, and the 
gossips attributed it to various causes, 
among others to the fact that lie had 
made unpleasant remarks concerning 
the conduct of the Saxons in the Cham- 
pigny tight; while others claimed that 
he was moping, because there had once 
been talk of making him Emperor of 
Germany, and that now the crown had 
passed forever from his grasp. He 
was in command, like Bismarck, of a 
regiment of cuirassiers, but was little 
with it. 

The only thing which broke the se- 
renity of the next day in the town was 
the wailing of military bauds as the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



355 



dead from the hospitals were borne to 
their graves. On the evening of the 
2">th there were, of course, dinners and 
feasting, despite the fact that the French 
had been swarming by Bougival, and 
that the cannon had spoken thunder- 
ously all day. 

Within the great park one of the most 
singular sights was the sport of the gayly 
uniformed soldiers on the newly made, 
but firm, ice on the canal. Hundreds of 
officers, who had sent to Germany for 
their skates, orwho had found some in the 
town, were frolicking like very boys on 



the ice. This canal is one of the chief 
beauties of Versailles, and when it is 
frozen it makes a magnificent skating 
park. It is nearly five thousand feet 
long, and about two hundred feet wide. 
Louis XIV. often transformed it into a 
Venetian scene in summer, and had some- 
times as many as two hundred gondolas, 
illuminated with glass lamps of all colors 
upon it. Here, too, he had his artificial 
sunsets, his gigantic fireworks, and his 
mimic sea-fights ; and in winter, when the 
weather was sharp enough, he aped 
Russian splendor. 



356 euuove in storm and calm. 



CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT. 

"The Point of View." — The Campaign in the South. — The Phantom Mobile.— New Year's Day.— 

Scene at the Palace. — The Bornhai'ilmcnt of Paris. — Between the Fires in Front of Fort Issy. — 
In the Batteries. — < lore-nation of King William of Prussia as Emperor of Germany at Versailles. 

THE old year went out in the midst his first walk over the field of Beaugency. 

of alarms and disappointed hopes He said that piles of frozen corpses, 

for the unhappy French of Versailles, scattered hither and yon, impressed him 

and gloom and intense suffering for the even more than did tlie groans and 

hundreds of thousands of the besieged shrieks of those who were still living, and 

within the walls of Paris. It was hit- to whom no help could be given for 

terlv cold in December. The environs hours. While passing a heap of Mobile 

of Paris are rarely visited by a. heavy Guards, who had evidently been killed 

snow fall, lint the snow came with the all at once, and nearly every one of 

war and the siege, as if no source of whom was vigorously grasping his gnu, 

misery were to lie left untried. he saw one handsome fellow lying so 

When the first snow fell, a French quietly pallid in the cold moonlight that 
friend of mine, in Versailles, said, he was tempted to approach and note 
" Thank God lor this ! It will kill thou- his rank. It was a young soldier, hold- 
sands of the Germans ! " That afternoon, ing in his stiffened hand a gun labelled 
during a ride to the outposts, I saw a " N.Y. U.S.A." He said that he removed 
stout Landwehrsman hugging himself the cap from the corpse's head, and, un- 
with joy, and saying, '• Thank God for clinching the cold lingers, took the gnu, 
this clear, cold weather! Now we can and carried away these souvenirs to 
work." Versailles. He affirmed seriously that. 

In this, as in so many other eases, for live nights afterwards, he was awa- 

the " point of view " was everything. kened regularly, at the same hour, by 

There was rough business in the South, the grasp of a relentless hand upon his 

Huge ambulance trains went out every arm, and felt that he was struggling with 

morning towards Orleans, and along the an invisible force. "It was," he said, 

line of march towards Beaugency. In "the dead Garde Mobile trying to get 

all the little towns on the route we saw T his gun hack again ! 

sights which made the blood curdle. The Bavarians were said to have lost 

Both French ami Germans had perished thirty thousand men out of an army corps 

by hundreds, f ir lack of proper care, which went into the southern campaign 

The German sifters from the Bavarian thirty-five thousand strong. This was 

Catholic convents did much to alleviate doubtless exaggerated, but the mortality 

the sufferings of thousands of poor was tremendous. The South German 

wretches. We saw men who were half States suffered heavily in losses of both 

frozen from exposure over-night on the officers and soldiers. The Bavarians, in 

battle-field, and I shall not soon forget fact, as a lighting corps, seemed to have 

an anecdote which a friend told me of been pretty well blotted out at one time ; 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



.•557 



and when allusion was made to the fact 
that General Von der Taun had gone to 
the support of some other army, the 
Prussians were puzzled to know whether 
it meant that he had gone alone or taken 
the tiny remains of his legions with him. 

But the Bavarians took death as they 
took life, very easily, and it is to be said 
for them that they bore with strength 
and patience a combination of ills which 
would have killed less sturdy and more 
fastidious men. The French constantly 
accused them of ferocity and cruelty, and 
these stories doubtless arose from the 
merciless repression of Francs-Tireurs, 
or the peasants who, without thinking it 
necessary to join the regular soldiery, 
took their guns in their hands and de- 
fended their homes. It seems clear that 
dozens of these men were shot in cold 
blood, simply as examples, during the 
campaign round about Orleans. It was 
woe to the unlucky blue blouse seen 
behind a loop-holed wall or at a third- 
story window. The French took occasion 
to massacre a large number of Bavarians, 
whom they found in a tight place, not 
long after this practice of shooting the 
Francs-Tireurs began ; and it was an- 
nounced at Versailles that General 
Chanzy had said at Le Mans that he 
would give no quarter to the enemy. 

New Year's Day at head-quarters passed 
quietly enough. Several hundred officers 
came into the old town from the various 
commands around Paris, and made up 
little parties, celebrating in the clumsy, 
but humorous, German way the advent 
of the new twelvemonth. In the Caf6 
de Neptune, just at midnight, there was 
a great gathering of these officers, and 
as the clock on the marble mantel struck 
twelve, the oldest of the company arose, 
and, filling all glasses from a bowl 
of steaming punch, said, "Gentlemen, 
brother officers, it is just twelve o'clock." 



Then all cried out : " Long live the New 
Year!" and a general hand-shaking 
followed. Some insisted on bonnet- 
ing their friends, remembering that in 
Germany, if you are caught in the street 
after twelve on New Year's Eve, you are 
likely to have your hat smashed over 
your eyes. 

Just as the festivities at the Crown 
Prince's quarters were at their height, 
and the Crown Prince had risen to wel- 
come in the youthful year, the hoarse 
roar of a far-off salute broke the silence. 
There had been but little cannonading 
during the day, and when this sud- 
den boom of the cannon was heard by 
the German officers they involuntarily 
looked for their swords, and then looked 
at each other. But no sortie was taking 
place. The salute which was just upon 
the stroke of midnight was the funeral 
salvo which Paris was firing over the 
grave of the disastrous 3'ear. For miles 
around, the twelve double-shotted volleys 
were heard ; and then there was silence 
again. 

The officers made grand toilettes for 
New Year's Day, and called to pay com- 
pliments to the King and their respective 
generals in the early morning. New 
regiments of clean, and, as yet, untried, 
soldiers came marching in before dawn, 
and the Versaillais had for their etrennes 
of the new year a liberal supply of live 
and hungry Prussians. I was invited to 
breakfast on this morning of January 1st 
with a French lawyer of distinction, who 
lived in a comfortable house in the Place 
Hoche,and at eleven o'clock I knocked at 
his hospitable door, and was received with 
a smiling face. 

"Let us," said my host, " make an 
effort to forget the circumstances in 
which we are placed, and celebrate the 
advent of the year with something like 

joy." 



358 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



He led the way to the dining-room, 
where the snowj" cloth of the great round 
table was loaded with sparkling glasses, 
with fat bottles in wicker baskets, with 
fruit, with cordials, ami with a goodly 
array of family silver. This was a 
tempting sight to one who had been for 
weeks accustomed to the meagre fare 
of the restaurants of Versailles ami the 
camps near by ; for it must not lie sup- 
posed that g I food was easily obtain- 
able atthe German head-quarters towards 
the close of the siege. It was almost 
impossible to get it. 

But the noils were unkind on this the 
first day of the new year, and we were 
scarcely seated opposite each other at 
table when the door-hell rang ami the 
servant, returning with a white face, said, 
"A Prussian." My host's face was white, 
too, but he was too well-bred to make 
any remark. He arose and left the room, 
presently returning with a tall, elegantly 
ii niton ued, distinguished-looking German 
officer, who made the stiff military salute 
to which we were so well accustomed, 
and apologized for what was, he said, the 
" unwilling intrusion." But he had been 
very anxious to see the old palace before 
tin' campaign was over, and had obtained 
this day a leave of absence, and his billet 
had sent him here for breakfast and din- 
ner. Would the gentlemen excuse him? 
And here, my friend, making a virtue of 
necessity, placed him a chair at the table ; 
and, daintily removing his white gloves, 
the officer sat down. 

It was an icy moment, and one which 
awoke all my sympathy for mine host; 
but we made the best of the situation, 
the German even disclosing a partial 
talent for English and naturally avoiding 
all mention of current events. The break- 
fast was eaten, the wine was drunk in 
cool and stately civility, and the officer, 
who was a gentleman, and possessed of 



rare tact, did not wait for coffee and 
cigars, but excused himself and politely 
departed. 

Knowing the French temperament, I 
waited with interest the explosion which 
I felt must come ; and, after the Prus- 
sian had closed the door behind him, and 
gone jingling down the stairs, my friend 
caught up the glass, the plate, the bottle 
from which lie had drank, and threw 
them, crashing, into a corner; then sat 
down with a pitiful face, and burst into 
tears. It was hard and cruel to bear, 
no doubt; but his trials were as naught 
beside those of the besieged " out there 
beyond," as he said, and. regaining his 
calm, he hoped for better days. 

The Prussians made liberal use of the 
old palace of Louis XIV. for their 
stately ceremonies; and on this New 
Year's Day, in the Salle des Glaces, all 
the nobles of Germany gathered to- 
gether. The venerable King seemed to 
enjoy his visits to tin' palace on such 
occasions, and after the receptions at 
the Prefecture he and his brilliant 
COrtige attended service at the chapel. 
The King was made uncomfortable by a 
very vigorous preacher, who insisted that 
monarchs often erred on the side of 
leniency. We interpreted this to mean 
that the Germans at home were getting 
impatient to hear details of the horrors 
of the bombardment. But when we 
said this to the Germans whom we 
knew, they were highly indignant. 

Amid the relies of France's ancient 
splendor an assembly crowded to hear 
the King's address. There, where all 
the wealth of Le Brun's coloring had 
been bestowed on the portrayal of the 
great monarch's glories; where the pla- 
fond was covered with such painted 
flattery that even Frenchmen blushed at 
the vanity of one of their race; there, 
where Louis once had his throne brought, 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



359 



that he might sit upon it as the ambas- 
sador of the King of Persia sank on his 
knees before him, now stood the King of 
Prussia in full general's uniform, with the 
Crown Prince, the Prince Friedrich Karl, 
with the chief admiral of the navy, 
Prince Adelbert. The scene was one of 
dazzling splendor, and the Prussian 
uniforms harmonized well 
with the gilding and the 
rainbow colors of the 
royal palace. The floor, 
inlaid with rare and finely 
labored woods, so that 
the effect of light and 
shade upon it is to make 
it look like the surface of 
a transparent pond, or 
some delicately tessellated 
marble pavement in a Ro- 
man church, — this floor 
fairly startled some of the 
Prussians who had never 
before entered the hall, 
and they seemed to be 
uncomfortable lest their 
dainty boots should be 
wetted. One or two of 
them went sprawling, for 
waxed parquets are diffi- 
cult to walk upon, (hit- 
side, trumpets brayed, gay 
horses pranced, and court- 
ly men bowed low as 
the future Emperor left 
the Palace after having 
listened to compliments from the hun- 
dreds of courtiers and foreign diplo- 
mats present. In the evening, at the 
dinner at the Prefecture, the Grand Duke 
of Baden made a speech, in which he 
alluded to the Imperial Crown, which, 
as Frederick William IV. had said, 
should only be worn on the field of 
battle. 

The " psychological moment " had at 



last arrived. The natives of Versailles 
kept asking each other : How about the 
bombardment? Why does it not com- 
mence ? But it had already commenced, 
and the Prussians had begun their 
steady task of reducing the outworks of 
the capital. The Germans, from the first, 
expected an increase of losses on their 




THE FRENCH TROOPS ABANDONING THE 
PLATEAU AT AVRON. 



hen 
d 

y 

a 
day or two 
after the first 
cannon were 
fired from the 
a d v a n c e d 
Prussian bat- 
teries, a thousand additional hospital 
beds were ordered in Versailles. The 
silence of Forts Rosny, Noisy, Ro- 
mainville, and Aubervilliers, after the 
reduction of Mont Avron, was much 
commented on, and the Prussians were 
mystified by it. The Germans did not 
reject as entirely ridiculous the state- 
ment that the forts might be mined, and 
it might be a very costly experiment to 



3r.o 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



assault and occupy them. By and by 
the batteries which the Saxons had been 
building on the crests of Raincy began 
to play upon the forts. The Saxons 
intended to accomplish a double purpose 
at once, — to disorganize the advance forts 
near them by a regular bombardment by 
their batteries on the right, and to rain 
down shells from the plain of Avron on 
the left, so that the French could not 
maintain their outworks. The batteries 
at Chelles, Noisy, La Pelouse, and other 
points near by, crossed their fires at 
Avion ; and it seemed a perfect Inferno 
on the plains for some hours. 

The French had been constructing a 
huge entrenched camp here, hut their 
phms were broken up by this furious 
shell tire of the Saxons. Avron was very 
strongly fortified, particularly towards 
the east. There the French had three 
rows of batteries, one above the other, 
and many of the cannon were of enor- 
mous calibre. The stillness of Forts 
Noisy and Rosiiy, after the retreat 
from Avron, was regarded by the Prus- 
sians as a conclusive proof that the siege 
was near its end. " If," they said, " we 
could occupy those forts, we could very 
soon send shells into Belleville and La 
Villette." 

From New Year's Day until the great 
sortie of Montretout, the cannonading 
was almost incessant. Every day 1 irought 
its alarm; every day its picturesque 
event ; every day, for us, its long ride or 
walk to the batteries or to little coigns 
of vantage, from which we could see 
something of the tremendous final oper- 
ation of the siege. biding towards Issy 
one morning, and looking out over Paris, 
we saw tall black columns of smoke 
rising apparently to the Triumphal Arch. 
The arch towered up, mistily defined in 
the distance, and with a field-glass we 
could observe the construction on its top 



which the Prussians called an iron-clad 
fort. But presently we saw that the 
smoke was not within Paris walls. It 
seemed in direct line with the Arch, but 
was caused by the burning of the village 
of Boulogne, opposite St. ( loud, on the 
Seine bank. With the field-glass we 
could see trains crowded with soldiers or 
the double-decked ears rattling along the 
Ceinture railway, and being transferred 
to the eastern side. Crash came defiant 
notes from Issy, and presently noises 
were heard above our heads. The Prus- 
sian rifled cannon were throwing shells, 
and we could track their course. Sud- 
denly they would become small as birds, 
and then lost to view. Once we saw 
three alight in Fort Issy at once. There 
was a silence among the French gunners 
for some minutes; then the angry defi- 
ance began again, and we were com- 
pelled hastily to shift our position. 

The ( lerman gunners were determined 
to hit the great viaduct, which stood 
so prominent and tempting a mark just 
outside the walls of Auteuil ; hut they 
never succeeded. I was told at the 
close of the siege that the Parisians 
went every Sunday to make excursions 
along the circular railway to this viaduct, 
which was covered witli trains, from 
which thousands of people were endeav- 
oring to get a glance at the Prussians, 
none of them having the slightest fear 
of the Teutonic projectiles. 

Between one of the principal Prussian 
batteries and Fort Issy, quite in the open, 
stood a house, always held by a certain 
number of stout-hearted soldiers, and 
serving as an ohervation post for officers. 
This was not a tranquil place, for the 
Prussian shells went whizzing and moan- 
ing above one's head, and once every 
minute came the whirring response from 
the French embrasures. If the gunners 
in Issv had desired to shorten their range 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



3G1 



and let fall a shower of missiles on this 
house they could do so at any moment. 
But thoy preferred to expend their fire 
upon the battery beyond, and so one 
was perhaps safer between the fires than 
he could possibty have been either in 
fort or battery. 

Here we came one morning, and nar- 
rowly escaped being shot by the excited 
soldier at the door before we could show 
our permission, and before we could 
make ourselves heard by an officer, but 
finally we were admitted. I was struck 
with the coolness of the commanding 
officer at this difficult post. He had the 
veritable spirit of a Brandenburg pirate ; 
and while the shells were crashing above 
and around he opened a bottle of wine, 
and invited us to partake, telling, mean- 
time, with pride how his soldiers had re- 
cently made the discovery of several 
hundred bottles of Chateau Margaux 
in one cellar. "Your Bavarian,'' he 
said, with a smile. " lias an antiquarian 
taste in wine, and we can always trust 
him to probe the cellars of the tfititeaux 
around." 

This officer looked upon war, by his 
own confession, as a brilliant episode in 
life, one which called out the best of a 
man's energies, and he saw no reason to 
quarrel with it as abnormal or cruel. He 
had the veritable Prussian training, the 
hard-hearted, sceptical way of looking 
at things in accordance with his own 
system and that of his race, of consider- 
ing everything reasonable and proper 
which suited his own ends. As for out- 
siders, gare la bombe! 

On the 13th of January we were told 
that twenty-six German batteries had 
been playing until late in the evening 
upon various quarters of Paris. The 
Bavarians were attacked by the French 
early in the day ; but the enemy was 
repelled. Rumor said that the French 



had swarmed out over the bridge of Bas 
Meudon at early morning, but while 
they were crossing, the Prussian bat- 
teries opened a deadly fire upon them, 
and the bridge giving way precipitated 
a large number of soldiers into the 
Seine. 

Inside Paris the vigorous bombard- 
ment which was now covering a wide 
district on the left bank of the .Seine 
was producing its sad effect. The 
HOpital de la Pitie was riddled with 
bombshells on the night of the 8th of 
January from the heights of Chatillon 
and from Meudon. The Prussians 
seemed deliberately bombarding the 
venerable public institutions of the great 
capital, — the hospitals, the churches, the 
colleges, universities, the schools of 
medicine and art. 

It was not strange that a cry went up 
through all Europe, a civ of horror and 
reproach, and that it almost startled the 
Germans into a change of policy. 

But they soon became impervious 
to criticism. They pleaded the impe- 
rious necessity of war as an excuse for 
bombarding the vast city crowded with 
helpless women and children; so they 
sent shells in showers for two months 
into one of the most thickly populated 
sections of Paris. The church of St. 
Sulpice, the Sorbonne, the Val de Grace, 
were all struck by shells. In a school in 
the Rue de Vaugirard four children 
were killed and five wounded by a 
single shell. The Luxembourg Museum 
was evacuated. The physicians of the 
hospital of the Enfants Malades issued 
a protest, declaring that the innocent 
children would be slain in their beds. 
The authorities at the Jardin des Plantes 
voted an inscription to be engraved on 
one of the buildings of their celebrated 
museum, stating that the garden founded 
by Louis XIII. had been bombarded 



365 



EUROPE L\ STORM AND CALM. 



under the reigu of William I., King of 

Prussia. 

In the cellars of Montronge were 
hundreds of frightened refugees. To 
the great vaults of the historic Pantheon 
came the living to crowd beside the 
noted dead, who were there entombed; 
and, during the whole twenty-live days 
of the bombardment, a terrible period 
which there is no space properly to 
describe here, every day brought its 
horror and its sacrifice of human life. 

Meantime old Port Issy, which had 
been so conspicuous from the first, kept 
up its reputation. It was inspiring to 
witness the defense of this place. The 
ma line artillery was there submitted to 
an almost crushing lire from the German 
batteries, and held out from first to last 
magnificently under the plunging shells 
from ('lama it, from ( hatillon, from Meu- 
doii. These marines, after their casemates 
had been smashed into muddy fragments 
ami the stones had been all knocked 
about by bombs, would drag out their 
fifteen cannons, hitching themselves to 
the pieces, and tugging them forward, 
tiring, screaming like savages as they 
fired, then dragging back their guns 
under the shelter of the half-dismantled 
parapets. In this fort of Issy one hun- 
dred men were killed, and :x great 
number were wounded by shells, and of 
four hundred who fell ill of cold, hunger, 
and want of sleep, three-quarters died 
shortly after the capitulation. 

By the time of the completion of the 
second parallel in front of Port Issy all 
the non-combatants at Versailles who 
were allowed the privilege of going outside 
the towns were intensely interested in the 
gnat duel between the German besiegers 
and these vigorous defenders of their 
position. The desperate energy of the 
marines in Issy led gradually up to the 
conclusion that all the forts were holding- 



out in expectation of a grand sortie, 
which would be the closing effort of the 
siege, and perhaps of the war. This feel- 
ing was in the air on the morning of the 
19th, which had been selected as a date for 
the ceremony of King William's accept- 
ance of the Imperial dignity conferred 
upon him by the German nations, now 
to be welded and unified into one, and 
under the influence of their ancient tradi- 
tion to accept an empire as the type of 
their new community. Some of the Prus- 
sian officers wen' heard to say, on the 
morning of the 19th, that it was a. good 
tiling to get the ceremony over, as there 
would be sharp work shortly. There 
was, indeed, sharp work two days later, 
when the great outpouring of Montretout 
took place; but alas! it was not des- 
tined to profit the French who wasted 
their heroism in vain efforts against the 
ever-re-strengthened line of the enemy. 

The day selected was noteworthy in 
Prussian minds for three tilings : first, for 
being the anniversary of the crowning of 
Frederick the Great; second, the birth- 
day of the eldest child of the Crown 
Prince; and third, as "Order Day," 
when all princes and officers decorated 
on previous occasions for conspicuous 
gallantry are wont to pass before their 
royal master in review and receive his 
felicitations. Here, indeed, was an oppor- 
tunity for a. fine pageant, and one which 
might have roused the pride and vain- 
glory of a nation more susceptible of 
vanity than the German. Despite the 
apprehensions of coming slaughter, the 
recent victories in the south and the 
apparent success in other sections of 
France had put the helmeted warriors in 
a good humor with themselves, and so 
they seemed to give themselves up to 
enjoyment. 

The day was a strange mixture of 
damp and cold, with occasional gleams 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



363 



of warm sunshine, the rain coming down, 
as it were, to weep over the dead, and 
then the sun chasing away the tears as 
unworthy of so great an occasion. 
Towards ten o'clock a brilliant throng 
began to assemble in the court-yard of 
the palace, and increased steadily in 
brilliancy and volume until the stroke 
of twelve, when the King, preceded 
by guards and outriders, drove to the 
doors of the great middle hall, enter- 
ing the court-yard from the Rue des 
Reservoirs. About eleven I found drawn 
up in line the King's bodyguard, taken 
from all the best regiments of the army, 
and glittering in a hundred colors, 
strongly contrasted. Thronging past 
these lines of warriors were the invited 
guests of higher rank, hastily returning 
the salutations of hundreds of hands 
embodying with accustomed servility 
the expression of their humbleness. 
Many of the Bavarian and Wurtemburg 
officers bad for the first time got out 
their gala uniforms, which had so long 
been packed in camp-chests that they 
were all creased, and even soiled and tar- 
nished, and some of the stately gentle- 
men of the German court presented a 
rather sorry figure. The Bavarian sol- 
diers were, for a wonder, especially 
fine in their bright-blue uniforms and 
shining helmets, and some of the officers 
were men of majestic presence. The 
Saxons were, as usual, spotless in raiment . 
The gigantic men of the Guard corps 
stalked about in their white uniforms 
and jack-boots. The dark-haired, stal- 
wart Brandenburger ; the Berliners, 
with spectacles on nose ; the strap- 
ping cavalry men, with iron crosses on 
their breasts; and the slender youths, 
with long hair combed back under 
their casques, and swords buckled on 
their slender thighs, — all hastened 
to the hall where the greatest Prus- 



sian ceremony of modern times was to 
occur. 

Around the statue of Louis XIV. a 
curious crowd of civilians and soldiers 
had gathered, and the gendarmes bad 
allowed them to remain there. Few 
French people were present. A crazy 
old woman ran hither and yon for some 
time, cursing everybody and begging 
from everybody ; but her curses and 
entreaties passed comparatively unno- 
ticed in the greater excitement of the 
moment. An odd spectacle was the 
pedestal of the statue of Bayard, with a 
lot of Prussian soldiers sitting dangling 
their legs from it. One could almost 
imagine the old hero looking with scorn 
upon the enemies below him. Two lines 
of soldiers — -boys, but superb figures, 
perfectly trained boys — were formed in 
the squares in the vicinity of the en- 
trance of the Salle des G laces, and there 
military bands were stationed to salute 
the coining King. The German banner, 
we observed, was now floating where 
latterly the red-cross Hag alone had 
been seen above the portico of the palace. 
The wounded soldiers crowded to the 
windows to see the spectacle, and their 
pale faces were the only vision of war 
which thrust its ghastly presence upon us. 

Presently the guests began to arrive 
pellmell. There was not much attempt 
at glory of equipage, as in campaigning 
it is difficult to obtain good carriages. 
Von Moltke came in a post-carriage 
which was splashed with mud ; Von Bis- 
marck in a little caleche, to which two 
diminutive ponies were attached : the 
Crown Prince in his modest coupe"; and 
dozens of officers in full toilette were 
caught in a pouring shower, which sud- 
denly visited us. Half-a-dozen princes 
would dash up in an omnibus, which they 
had happily discovered at the last mo- 
ment ; and the historic furniture-van, 



364 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



which played such an important rdle in 
the transportation of potentates, military 
and political, in Versailles, again came 
into play. Great precautions were taken 
for tile safety of the King. Stout sol- 
diers wandered carelessly about in the 
crowd, lint with their guns held as a 
huntsman holds his when he hears the 
deer breaking cover. How did the 
Prussians know how far French fanati- 
cism might venture? It only went far 
enough, to my knowledge, mysteriously 
to suggest that the last time that a 
great public gathering was held in the 
Salle des Glaces it had been found nec- 
essary to prop the floor, so weak with 
age it had become. But we may fairly 
presume that the Germans, with their 
talent for investigation, had carefully 
examined the parquet of the time of 
Louis XIV. Prince George of Saxony 
was one of the most noticeable in the 
crowd of notables; and around him was 
a brillianl assemblage of officers. 

All along the Avenue de Paris and the 
Place d'Armes, as the King camcrattliug 
from the Prefecture to the palace, arose 
deafening shouts of " Hurrah for the 
Emperor!" The guard along the grand 
staircase which led to the Salle des 
Glaces was composed of picked men 
from the various regiments around Paris. 
Visibly affected by the magnificent spec- 
tacle before him, the old King wandered 
into the great, loom like one scarcely 
daring to believe that the splendors 
before him were real ; and during the 
whole ceremony he was profoundly 
moved, and listened with the air of one 
surprised, and continually questioning 
himself as to what it all meant. 

One hundred and seventy years before 
Frederick I. had put on the crown des- 
tined to such prominence in history. 
As King William entered the hall where 
Louis XIV. had been wontto receive his 



courtiers, he must have reflected a mo- 
ment on the mutability of human great- 
ness and on the future of the country 
with which he as an old man could have 
but little to do. Solemnly to accept the 
German crown when he could not swear 
long to uphold the Empire even by his 
sword and word must have seemed to 
him like mockery. To place it on his 
brows at the end instead of the beginning 
of his long and stately career, as he 
paused before the gate of Paris, about 
to enter that great capital for the second 
time as a victor, could not, however, 
have been without a certain consolation. 

In the middle of the grand hall, and with 
its back to the windows opening on the 
park, an altar was erected. Upon this 
altar, gracefully decorated, lighted can- 
dles were placed, and at each side sat 
three pastors, clothed in the sombre 
habiliments of their order, and symbol- 
izing the support of the Church to the 
new Empire. Farther down the hall 
was another and smaller altar, and in 
front of this were arranged the standards 
of all the regiments of the third army. 
Between the two altars were placed 
Bavarians and other soldiers. In front 
of the principal altar were several sol- 
diers, who had, in times past or in recent 
campaigns, received two iron crosses, anil 
two of them had their heads bound up, 
and showed other marks of ugly wounds. 
On the platform at the farther end of 
the gallery many soldiers were stationed 
upholding standards. 

The King was preceded by the mar- 
shal of his household and the court mar- 
shal, the Counts of Pucklen and Per- 
poncher, and followed by Prince George 
of Saxony, the reigning Duke of Saxe 
Coburg, and the majority of the heredi- 
tary princes. Beside these, as they 
took their places in front of the grand 
altar, were also the Crown Prince, 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



:;<;■. 



Prince Charles of Prussia, the King's 
brother and Grand Master of the Order 
of St. John of Jerusalem, the Grand 
Dukes of Sase Weimar, Oldenburg, and 
Baden, the Duke of Saxe Meiningen, 
the Duke of Saxe Altenburg, Princes 
Luitpold and Otho of Bavaria, Prince 
William and Duke Eugene of Wurtem- 
burg, Leopold of Hohenzollern, who had 
unwittingly provoked the war, and the 
Duke of Holstein. The old King, bolt 
upright, and from time to time gazing 
with childlike curiosity upon the scene, 
listened intently to the sermon which one 
of the preachers now delivered with 
much grace and eloquence. The sermon 
touched upon the historic and religions 
character of the ceremony now in prog- 
ress, and endeavored to describe its 
mysterious influence on the hearts of 
the German nation. It was a fine 
tribute as well to the new subject of ado- 
ration, the venerable hero soldier; and 
the King was deeply affected by it. 

Von Bismarck and Von Moltke mean- 
time, one on each side of the platform, 
winked sleepily and wickedly, and 
seemed inwardly much amused at all 
this parade. General Blumenthal, also 
near at hand, with the commanding gen- 
erals and officers of all grades grouped 
about him, was grimly silent, and ap- 
peared to consider the whole thing a 
waste of time. In long rows down each 
side of the gallery were the distin- 
guished military and civil personages 
from all nations of Europe. 

The sermon finished, a general buzz 
of congratulation was just springing up 
in the hall when the King suddenly 
advanced to the platform, and there, 
surrounded by the standard-bearers of 
the first Guard regiment, he pronounced 



his address to the princes, in which he 
declared his intention of accepting the 
Imperial German Crown. After he had, 
with faltering voice, finished his vow, 
Bismarck advanced tranquilly to read 
the proclamation to the German people. 
This was, so far as Bismarck was con- 
cerned, the culmination of the war ; the 
unification of the German people under 
the rule of one man was accomplished. 
No wonder such a gigantic task had made 
a diplomat already ripe in years look 
almost as old as his master. 

After the reading of the proclamation 
the Grand Duke of Baden, who seemed 
to have been adopted as spokesman on 
most occasions, hailed the King as Em- 
peror of Germany. A three-times-three 
awoke the echoes which had been lying 
perdu for two centuries, and the Crown 
Prince hastened to embrace his father 
and affectionately to grasp his hand. 
II is example was followed by all the 
members of the Royal Family and all 
the princes and dukes present. Whi n 
the ceremon} - was finished, there were 
tears on the old King's face, and many 
of the lookers-on were visibly moved. 
Amid the waving of standards, flags 
which had been in all the early battles 
of the present war, and the echoes of 
the national hymn and triumphal 
marches, the brilliant assembly broke 
up and drove away in its hundreds of 
carriages, splendid and shabby, to the 
task of eating the dinner in celebration 
of " Orders Day." At the Hotel des 
Reservoirs and other fashionable res- 
taurants there was riotous merriment, 
and the word " Kaiser" echoed through 
the street, and in all places where uni- 
forms were visible, until long past mid- 
night. 



366 EURO I'll IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. 

Bourbaki and Belfort. — The Final Sortie of the French. — Montretout. — The Panic in Versailles. — 
The Treaty for Peace. — The Eiul of the Siege of Paris. 

WHERE is Bourbaki?" was a fre- battle to the French at Pont-Noyelles 
quent question at the German and at Bapaume, where there was a 
head-quarters in the days just before the great slaughter of German squadrons 
great fight at Montretout. A certain and cavalry, and where Faidherhe, with 
portion of the army under his command reason, claimed success; but the closing 
seemed to be lest sight of, and caused the of most of the northern fortresses by the 
Germans no little uneasiness. The first German army was finally successful, 
siege of Belfort had been checked by The .Seventh corps besieged Thiojiville; 
the proximity of a part of Bourbaki's the first bombarded Mezieres with the 
armv, and the invaders naturally thought siege cannon which it had taken from 
that the object of the wily Frenchman the French at Montmedy. Mezieres 
was to raise the siege of this fortress, surrendered ; Peronne was bombarded 
which was defended with such heroic and capitulated ; Rocroi gave up ; 
valor, and to bring into active use the C'harleville was disarmed ; and Belfort 
great supply of munitions shut up within was undergoing a bombardment, in coin- 
it. Every conceivable supposition was parisou with which that of Paris was 
indulged in at head-quarters. Now it feeble. Yet the Germans, to the very 
was said that Bourbaki intended to leave moment of the surrender of the forts in 
Belfort to attack the communications front of Paris, were oppressed with fears 
line, and now to slip away into Ger- lest out of the north might come a 
manv, and begin a war of reprisals, crushing blow to check them just as they 
But manv had already begun to consider were at the moment of their supreme 
him as sharing the incompetency of some triumph. 

of his brothers in office, because he had So predisposed, indeed, were the in- 

not improved his brilliant opportunities, vaders to a panic, that, when the last and 

The French arms had not been crowned despairing effort of the besiegers was 

with victory in the north, although atone made, and resulted in the occupation of 

time it seemed as if the campaign, so the redoubt of Montretout, near Mile 

vigorously organized by Bourbaki, would d'Avray, there was universal consterna- 

yield brilliant results. l'.ut Bourbaki lion at Versailles. The gallant Jagers, 

was replaced by General Faidherhe, who w hohadlongheld the redoubt, wen- thrown 

at first had numerous successes, and back upon the Versailles road in great 

was finally worsted in the battle of St. confusion ; and the population of the 

Quentin, fought on the 19th of January, old capital of Louis XIV. flocked out, — 

The struggle in the north was hard and regardless of the menaces of the Germans, 

full of romantic and picturesque episodes. — shouting and laughing, fully convinced 

The Prussian took Amiens ; they gave that they were to welcome their victori- 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



367 



/ 



* \ I i i 







ARREST OF A SUPPOSED SPY 



ous brethren, and to see the headlong 
retreat of the Teutonic foe towards the 
German frontier. It did not take long 
in those days for any proclamation which 
was posted in Paris to reach Versailles ; 
the German spies were worthy of all the 
contemptuous praise which the French 
bestowed upon them ; and they went in 
and out of the lines with a recklessness 
and frequency which were quite dazzling. 
On the morning of the 19th they brought 
in a report that the following document 
had been posted upon the walls of l'aiis, 
and was signed by the members of the 
Government of National Defense : — 

Citizens, — The enemy is slaying your 
wives and children. It bombards us night 
and day. It covers even our hospitals with 



, » 







shells. The cry to arms is heard on every 
side. 

Those among you who can give their lives 
on the field of battle will march against the 
enemy. Those who remain, to show them- 
selves worthy of their brethren, will accept, 
if necessary, the hardest sacrifices, as their 
means of devotion to tiie country's service. 
Let us suffer, and die if necessary, but let us 
cry : Vive la Republique I 



368 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



As the result of this touching procla- 
mation, which, after the lapse of years, 
seems perhaps to our colder apprehension 
somewhat theatrical in tone, but which 
then scut a thrill of pity through our 
hearts, and impressed us with the same 
fervor <>f feeling that it gave to the 
Parisians, the one hundred thousand 
men massed outside the walls on the 
night from the l.Stli to the ltlth were de- 
termined to break through the German 
lines at :io matter what cost of life, and 
to reach the old town where the invader 
had so coolly and so insolently estab- 
lished himself. These forces were 
massed in front of Forts Valerien and 
Issy at daybreak on the 19th; and at 
eight o'clock they had driven in the 
Prussian pickets, and a general alarm 
was sounded all along the German lines. 
Attacks were expected in the direction 
of St. Denis and on the extreme east; 
but they did not then occur. 

Before eight o'clock we heard in Ver- 
sailles that twenty-four battalions of 
French liners, National Guards and 
Zouaves, had begun the work of reduc- 
ing the batteries of St. Cloud and 
storming Montretout. As soon as the 
object of the attack was discovered, all 
the troops of Versailles were at once 
despatched to the scene of action, and 
the reserve, ten thousand stalwart Bava- 
rians, were ordered from Bievre and all 
the towns in the rear of the investment 
lines on the south-west, to take up their 
position in the Prussian head-quarters. 
The dozens of batteries which had been 
so long stationed on the Place d'Armes 
were limbered up. and rallied away in 
the direction of Montretout. Cavalry, 
infantry, and artillery filled the Avenue 
do Paris and the Avenue de St. Cloud, 
and the men settled down wearily in the 
mud to wait the turn of events, the Ba- 
varians beguiling the hours by singing 



hymns, harmoniously and enthusiasti- 
cally, only pausing in their musical efforts 
to cheer when the old Emperor came 
back from his brief visit to the front. 
The National Guards were highly praised 
by the Germans, although Bismarck, in 
speaking of them to Jules Favre a little 
later on during the Conference, relative 
to the conclusion of the armistice, said, 
'• Oh, yes ; they arc very brave fighters ; 
but when they are going into action they 
are so glad of it that they warn us an 
hour in advance." This was a spiteful 
criticism, provoked by the knowledge 
that, had the French begun their action 
one or two hours earlier on the 19th of 
January they might have gone straight 
into Versailles, and, possibly, have 
captured the newly made Emperor of 
Germany, and all his court. The moral 
effect of such acoupde main would have 
been so great that it might have com- 
pletely changed the current of events 
and forced the conclusion of a peace 
most honorable to France. 

The assault at Montretout cost the 
French large numbers of men, and the 
slopes were covered with dead and 
wounded until a late hour in the even- 
ing. General de Bellemare got on to 
the crest known as the Beigerie ; there 
took the curd's house, and pushed on 
valiantly into the park of Buzcnval. 
General Ducrot, meantime, on the right, 
was creeping up to the heights of La 
Jonchere. The day was wretchedly 
cold and damp; and from time to time 
a heavy fog hindered the French officers 
carrying orders from one part of the 
field to another in their movements. 
This, doubtless, greatly demoralized the 
ensemble of the action. 

From Saint Germain, and from the 
Villa Stern, we had very advantageous 
views of the fight. From behind the 
trenches which protected the French the 



EUROPE IN STURM AM) CALM. 



369 



fire was steady, and seemed gradually 
forcing the Prussians to give way. The 
King left Versailles early in the after- 
noon, attended by a numerous guard, 
and took up his post on the viaduct of 
Marly, whence he had witnessed the affair 
at Le Bourget in October. The Germans 
universally hailed the occasion as the 



been chosen by the French as the point 
where they might form without being ob- 
served, while they waited their turn in the 
movements. By and by Saint Germain 
became an object of close attention 
from the French fire, and many shells 
were aimed with splendid accuracy at 
the pontoon bridge over the Seine. 



'"^vS. "-": ~~ - : 




THE WALT, OF BUZENVAL.- EPISODE OP TITE STEGE OF PARIS. 



baptism of fire lor the new Emperor, 
and he was acclaimed whenever he 
showed himself to the enthusiastic sol- 
diery. From Saint Germain, about mid- 
afternoon, we observed a great massing 
of French troops in the edge of the Bois 
du Vesinet. This beautiful wood, which 
lay spread out like a lordly park before 
the spectators on the great terrace, had 



One, two, and three, burst nearby with- 
out inflicting much damage; at last the 
gunners got their range, and threw the 
projectiles directly on to the structure. 
Then, as ill-luck would have it, the shells 
did not burst. Finally this was given 
up, and the gunners from the batteries 
in front of Valerien tried long-range 
shot at the Pavilion Henri IV., at the 



370 



EUROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



end of 1 lio terrace ; and there was a 
general sauve </"i peut, until il was 
demonstrated that Valerien could not 

reach that point. During the few 
hours since ten o'clock the concentra- 
tion of German troops near Montretout 
had been very rapid, and, as the French 
massed up against tin 1 redoubt which 
their advance had taken and so cour- 
ageously held, they were met by a terri- 
ble lire. 

Thi' French troops of the National 
Guard, who had been much ridiculed by 
the regular liners during the siege, stood 
under lire for more than live hours dur- 
ing this tight without breaking ranks. 
When the French attacked on the side 
near Garches it became evident that 
the German resistance was fully organ- 
ized, and would be successful. Just 
at the time that the French soldiers 
were thoroughly fatigued by their long 
watch on the previous night and their 
severe fighting, the German reserves 
poured down upon them, and threw them 
out of their position at, Montretout. 
Hut, to the surprise of all the lookers-on, 
the French rallied, and came back at a. 
furious pace up the hill, breaking the 
German line, which, although it wavered, 
kept up wild hurrahs of victory, anil 
never ceased its steady volleys of mus- 
ketry. The French were half-a-dozen 
times well installed at points from which 
they could have thrown shells into Ver- 
sailles ; luit. as the dreary winter dark- 
ness closed in. the tiring on both sides 
ceased almost, entirely, and towards 
eight o'clock the National Guards left 
the redoubt, the Germans throwing an 
occasional shell into the columns, which 
went down the hill in very good order, 
and flocked away to Rueil over roads 
covered with wounded and dying men, 
wagons and carts up to the hubs of 
their wheels in mud. The Germans 



admitted that they would have had to 
lose at, least six hundred men if they had 
pursued the National Guard. 

The inhabitants of Versailles had cer- 
tainly thought that deliverance was near. 
Many arrests were made. The soldiery, 
which had all the winter been good- 
natured in its intercourse with the French 
population, suddenly became disagreeable 
and fierce, and we saw many little epi- 
sodes which indicated that a collision 
might readily have been provoked. A 
Zouave, half intoxicated, was brought 
in from the battle-field between two 
dragoons, and the comments of the Ger- 
mans upon his antics roused the greatest 
indignation among the French. A rough 
dragoon at the head of a patrol column 
was so annoyed at seeing a priest stand. 
ing in the midst of an anxious and angry 
crowd, and haranguing the people, that 
lie singled out the man of long robes, 
and chased him ingloriously into a neigh- 
boring house, striking him a number of 
times with the flat of his sword. Many 
peasants were brought in by soldiers and 
charged with cutting the telegraph wire. 
There was only one sentence passed by 
military tribunals in such cases, — sen- 
tence of death ; and the penalty was 
placarded in a hundred places in Ver- 
sailles. There were many tearful eyes 
at the officers' tables at the cafis where 
the invader dined, that evening, when 
the list of German losses came in with 
the evening report. The official journal 
the same evening mentioned the Sortie in 
a paragraph of six lines, in which it 
utterly ignored the partial success of the 
French, and said that the German losses 
\vvi\' insignificant, which was untrue. It 
also announced that Bourbaki was in 
full retreat, and that the siege of Belfort 
had been resumed. 

Late at night the troops from the 
battle-field were still coming into town, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



371 



bespattered with mud, and many of them 
grievously wounded, and marched past 
the Place d'Annes while military bands 
played hymns of victory. The long 
artillery trains came trundling back to 
tiic great square, the guns were placed 
in the old positions, and the stalwart 
artillery-men were at work cleaning them, 
half an hour after their arrival, with 
the same careful concern witli which an 
English groom would care for a horse 
after a muddy gallop. It was well-nigh 
midnight before the return from the 
battle-field was over, and all night long 
the patrols kept up a vigilant promenad- 
ing through the town. 

When Paris came to count its losses 
after this memorable day, it was thrilled 
with horror. Among the dead at Buzen- 
val was the noble young painter, Henri 
Regnault, a colorist of great distinction, 
already noted for the L " .Salome," which 
is sufficient to render bis name immor- 
tal. At Buzenval, too, fell a young 
comedian of the Theatre Francais, who 
when he was taken to the hospital estab- 
lished in the theatre to which he belonged, 
said, " I have come back to play once 
more the last scene of the ' Fourberies 
de Scapin.' " A few hours later he died. 
Both sides were eager for an armistice; 
and the Prussians, on the morning of the 
20th of January, sounded their bugles 
three times, to offer a truce of a few hours, 
before the French answered. Meantime 
the Germans carried the French wounded 
to Marnes, where a Prussian general 
meeting a French general, said to him, 
" We w r ere filled with admiration for the 
spirit of your new troops of the line." 
The old veteran had mistaken the simple 
National Guards, citizens, doing their 
duty, actuated by patriotism and despair, 
for regulars. 

The war and the siege of Paris were 
coming to an end together. The defeat 



of General C'hanzy's army at Le Mans, 
and the defeat of Faidherbe at St. 
Quentiu, were terrible blows to the 
French. The Prussians bad now invaded 
Normandy. They were at Rouen ; Long- 
wy had capitulated, and we were not 
surprised when we heard that Jules Favre 
had visited Versailles, and that a sus- 
pension of hostilities was certain. 

The French appeared to have thrown 
away their weapons rather wildly after 
their withdrawal from Montretout, for 
wagon-loads of chassepdts were brought 
into Versailles. I saw several hundred 
of the guns undergoing examination two 
days after the fight at Montretout, and 
think that the conquered chassepdts were 
distributed to the German outposts. 
After the surrender of the large number 
of fortresses, big and little, nothing was 
more common in Versailles and around 
Paris than to see a Prussian officer wear- 
ing a French sword, the silver cord and 
tassel contrasting strongly with the 
severely elegant plainness of his own uni- 
form. The Germans could see nothing in- 
congruous in wearing a conquered enemy's 
weapons in his own country, and reasoned 
as an officer did concerning the proposed 
removal of the military library of .St. Cyr 
to Berlin: '-It is ours by the rights of 
war, and if the French are anxious to 
have it back, let them come and get it." 
The library, however, was not removed. 

Each morning we were awakened by 
the clatter of muskets and the regu- 
lar tramp of newly arriving troops. 
The Laudwehrsmen, the business men, 
thinkers, butchers, speculators, now 
swarmed everywhere. I counted thirty 
men grouped in the Avenue de .St. Cloud, 
every one of whom was more than six 
feet two inches in height, and sturdy in 
proportion. One morning an officer six 
feet seven strolled down the Rue de la 
Paroisse, and some naughty French boys 



372 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



cried out, " Lower the curtains in the 
second-story windows." 

The 24th of January was one of those 
strange days which sometimes come to 
Northern France in the early days of the 
year. The air was as soft and perfumed 
as that «if spring; in every forest, alley, 
and garden there was hint of coining 
verdure. In the bombardment there was 
a hill ; not a single gun was heard solemnly 
booming. Fancy overcame me ; potent 
is her sway; and as I walked by the 
great pond I seemed to lose Versailles, 
invaders, and the conquered population, 
and my thoughts were with the defenders 
of the massive fortress city, so near and 
yet so far away. Presto! As with the 
magic carpet of the Arabian tale, I 
was transported faster than balloons, 
pigeons, or lovers' wishes could go. 
Now I was at Suresnes, where thou- 
sands of blue-bloused workmen were still 
toiling on the fortifications, as if they 
fancied that the Germans were deter- 
mined upon an assault ; now in the 
magnificent drives of the Boulogne forest, 
where pale and grim old women were cut- 
ting boughs from the trees which had been 
felled by order of the military engineers. 
Half way up tin' slope of the Valerien 
acclivity I could see the glitter of the gay 
uniforms of soldiers, two and two, and 
four and four, carrying bodies and 
digging the graves, planting the seed 
which the fallen oak of the Empire had 
scattered. 1 noticed that the dense foliage 
on the Seine banks was gone, that the 
bridges were wrecks, the villages ruins, 
the hillsides of St. Cloud, of Bellevue, of 
Meudon, scarred and seamed by war. 
Uncouth-looking peasants, ill at ease in 
their uniform, and speaking dialects which 
I could not understand, jostled civilians, 
and mistrusted everybody. On their 
rude tunics were the names of towns and 
cities of which I had never heard. Cava- 



liers, who scarcely merited the name, so 
awkward were they on their horses, gal- 
loped recklessly, hearing orders. Up and 
down the Uois de Boulogne constantly 
went the patrols, as often arresting an 
innocent baker or candlestick-maker as 
a German spy when spies were not rare. 
On a tree a singular notice was posted: 
"Instructions for avoiding shell-lire;" 
pencil-mark by a mischievous Parisian 
under it.:" Last and best instruction, get 
out of range." 

Why could uotonego down the deserted 
avenue at the southern end of the wood? 
Because the town of Boulogne was burn- 
ing and the Prussians were constantly 
sending shell into the edge of the forest, 
and children offered splinters of the 
death engines for sale, saying, " These 
are smaller than those of yesterday. The 
Prussians are exhausting themselves." 
Now came the soldier detailed to bring 
newspapers from the city to the sub- 
urbs, the diminutive sheets -printed on 
straw paper, clamoring for the removal of 
Trochu, claiming victory in an obscure 
part of France, and bestowing a slight 
scratch upon Gambetta ; local news ; mor- 
tality of infants ; distressing and terrible 
suffering among poor women ; riot in cer- 
tain disreputable quarters; attempt to 
traduce a Jille publique before a court- 
martial by her sisters, because she had 
been into the Prussian lines and safely 
out again ; decree of the military gov- 
ernor condemning disorders ; horrible 
penalties; regiments of Mobiles, fat, 
lean, ragged, and spruce, marching with 
discontented air to Valerien ; twenty or 
thirty richly dressed gentlemen with arms 
inlaid with silver and trappings of horses 
superb in decoration. These were the 
counts and barons organized as eclaireurs, 
and doing good service for France. 

Did I dream these things, or did they 
come from the hundred rumors and 



EUROPE TN STORltf AND CALM. 



373 



reports of German soldiers, who had 
been at the front, and who were fond of 
nothing so much as of gossiping about 
what, was going on within the French 
lines? 

The bombardment of St. Denis was 
well under way. Since the sortie of 
the 21st the Germans had been pouring 
shot into the town, and many fires had 
been noticed there. Frenchmen came 
into Versailles with rumors that the 
Cathedral was destroyed. But no ! only 
a few shells had touched it. The grand 
old Latin cross into whose form the 
church was built was still unharmed, 
and the tomb of the kings seemed 
charmed against the enemy's shells. 
The houses and public edifices all 
around it were in ruins ; huge timber- 
yards, ignited by an exploding bomb, 
sent up such a glare and smoke that 
many were persuaded that Paris was in 
flames. The fort got shells poured into 
it every second ; they rolled together 
over its walls ; they exploded upon one 
another ; they seemed to struggle for 
place above the bastion ; still St. Denis 
held out bravely, answering in deep base 
its defiance of the loudest German guns. 

On the 22d the fire from the brother 
forts near St. Denis suddenly ceased ; 
then St. Denis himself missed his accus- 
tomed round. This strange quiet un- 
nerved the Germans, who could scarcely 
sleep without the thunders to which they 
had so long been accustomed. On the 
southern side Issy's gigantic battered 
hulk was still supporting the German 
fire ; but the embrasures were closed, and 
the guns were said to have been removed 
to the Paris ramparts. The French 
marines, said the Germans, were now to 
man the wall guns. Fort Vanves was 
in a dreadful condition, more damaged, 
if possible, than Issy. Now we heard a 
brisk shooting from German rifle pits. 



French prisoners brought in thought that 
their sharp-shooters were destroying the 
whole Prussian army; German sharp- 
shooters, on their side, boasted of the 
many victims they had made. In the 
German batteries gun carriages began 
to give way, from the severe strain upon 
them. 

And now it was announced as certain 
that M. Jules Favre had reached Ver- 
sailles ; that a carriage had been sent to 
the river at Serres to meet him ; that In- 
had eagerly read the official journal of 
that evening, in which was Bismarck's 
circular enumerating the number of times 
which the French had broken the rules 
of the Geneva Convention, besides the 
intelligence that St. Denis was still 
burning. For the first time he had the 
particulars of Faidherbe's defeat, of 
the peasants retreating from Cam- 
brai and the surrounding country. I 
was fortunate enough to see M. Favre. 
He looked old, and worn, and weary, 
and as if he had had but little to 
eat. That which most truly distressed 
M. Favre was his complete ignorance of 
the situation of the army of the east 
when he went first to see Count Von 
Bismarck. He knew of the disasters to 
General Chanzy, and, as we have seen, 
read of the troubles which had befallen 
Faidherbe ; but he had not heard a word 
of Bourbaki. He knew only of that 
general's march towards Montbeliard, 
which had been so brilliantly begun, 
and that General Von Werder had evac- 
uated Dijon, Gray, and Vesoul before 
Bourbaki's advance. But he did not 
know that, on the very day that he was 
pleading for an armistice. Bourbaki in 
despair had attempted to take his own 
life, and that the Prussian division 
marching upon Dijon had blocked Gari- 
baldi's way. 

When M. Favre asked Bismarck for 



.374 



EUROPE J.Y STORM AND CALM. 



news he said that ho had had none for 
several days : the wires were all down in 
the greater pent of the country, and com- 
munications, lie said, were slow and 
uncertain. But, despite the apparent 
insufficiency of his information, Bis- 
marck was very anxious that Belfort 

si !d be surrendered. It would be as 

well, lie said. In give it up, for it could 
not hold out, for more than a week 
longer. M. Favre could not consent to 
such a concession. Bismarck refused to 
comprise Belfort in the armistice, and 
poor M. Favre's anxiety was very great, 
for he fancied that the army of the east 
might be victorious, and raise the siege 
of Belfort, and to l>e asked to give it up 
in such a juncture or to relinquish the 
(•.inclusion of an armistice, which was 
vital to Paris, was a dreadful alternative. 
" Very well." said Bismarck, " then put 
off the signing of the armistice until 
after this fate of Belfort is decided." 
M. Favre hardly knew what to say to 
this, for he said. " I was constantly 
pursued by the terrible fear that I should 
not have the necessary linn for revict- 
ualling Paris." 

On the evening of the 26th of January 
M. Favre had a lone conference with 
General Von Moltke. After arranging 
the principal details of an armistice with 
Bismarck, and after he had reached the 
point at which the signing of the con- 
vention seemed only a matter of form, 
lie came hack to Bismarck, and had a 
final conversation with him. The great 
Chancellor accompanied him to his car- 
riage, and said, with something like lively 
sympathy in his tones, as he was taking 
leave of M. Favre, "I scarcely think 
that, at the point which we have now 
reached, a rupture is possible. If you 
consent, we will stop the tiring this even- 
ing." — " I should have asked you to do 
it yesterday." answeredM. Favre, deeply 



moved. " As I have the misfortune to 
represent conquered Paris, I could not 
solicit -a favor; hut 1 accept with much 
heartiness now that you offer, it is the 
(list, consolation I have had in our 
troubles. It was insupportable to me to 
think that blood should be shed in vain, 
while we are arranging the conditions for 
a suspension of hostilities." 

'•Very well," said Bismarck, "it is 
understood that we shall give reciprocal 
orders to have the firing cease at mid- 
night, lie good enough to see that your 
orders are strictly executed." 

M. Favre promised, stipulating only 
that tin' French should be allowed to tire 
the last shot. 

•• It was nine o'clock," he wrote in his 
official account, -'when I crossed the 
Seine at the bridge of Sevres. The con- 
flagration in St. Cloud was still in prog- 
ress. Probably not having been warned 
of our arrival, our artillery-men at 
"Point du Jour were raining shells in our 
neighborhood. Two or three missiles 
fell on the hank just as we left it. It 
would have been odd enough if one 
of them had taken a notion to inter- 
rupt my mission. As soon as I reached 
Paris I hastened to General Vinoy. I 
drew up the order agreed upon, accom- 
panying it witli the most precise instruc- 
tions. At the moment that I was writ- 
ing it an officer on duty received a tele- 
gram from the commander of the Fori 
de la Conr Xeuve. This was to ask 
for reinforcements, and expressed lively 
fears for the results of the enemy's 
bombardment on the morrow. ' I give 
you here,' I said to the officer, who 
brought me this news, ' something 
which will shelter this brave garrison. 
Our soldiers have done their duty to the 
very end. We owe them as much grati- 
tude as if they were victorious.' 

■• At a quarter of an hour before mid- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



375 



night I stood on the stone balcony at 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs overlook- 
ing (lie Seine. The artillery of our forts 
and that of the German army were still 
crashing on. Twelve o'clock sounded. 
There was a last explosion repeated far 
off by an echo, which died slowly away. 
Then silem-e settled over all. It was 
the first repose for many long weeks. It 
was the first symptom of peace since the 
beginning of the senseless war into which 
we had been forced by the infatuation of 
a despot and the criminal servility of Ins 
courtiers. I stood for a long time lost 
in in v reflections. I believed that the 
massacres had ceased ; and, in spite of 
the sorrow which weighed me down, this 
thought was a kind of relief. I did not 
foresee that behind this bloody curtain 
now lowered upon our disasters were 
concealed still more lamentable calami- 
ties and humiliations." 

The armistice was signed : a neutral 
zone was established between the two 
armies, and the siege of Paris was prac- 
tically at an end. The proclamation of 
the Government of National Defense, 
which was posted on the walls of Paris 
on the 28th of January, announced that 
the National Guard would preserve its 
organization ami its weapons; that the 
resistance of Paris would be closed iu a 



lew hours ; that the troops would remain 
in Paris among the citizens; the officers 
would keep their swords; and that the 
Government felt that it could show that 

it had held out just as long as there was 
food enough left to allow of the revietual- 
ling of the fortress without subjecting 
two million men, women, and children to 
the tortures of famine. " The siege of 
Paris." said this proclamation, ■•has 
lasted four months and twelve days ; the 
bombardment, a whole month. Since the 
Loth of January the ration of bread has 
been reduced to three hundred grammes. 
The ration of horse-flesh since the 15th of 
December has been but thirty grammes. 
The mortality has more than trebled; 
but in the midst of so many disasters 
there has not been a single clay of dis- 
couragement. The enemy is the first 
to render tribute to the moral energy 
and the courage that the whole Pari- 
sian population has shown. Paris has 
suffered greatly, but the Republic will 
profit by its lone- sufferings, so nobly 
borne. We go forth from the struggle 
which has just ended ready for the 
struggle which is to come We go forth 
with all our honor, with all our hopes, 
despite the anguish of the present hour, 
more than ever confident in the high 
destinies of the country." 



;;,(. 



EUROPh IA STORM AND CALM. 



( 11APTKR FORTY. 



Personal Reminiscences of the Close of the Siege. — The "Neutral Zone." — 'Wonders and Comicali- 
ties. — Through the Park at St. Cloud. — The Crown Prince's Redoubt.— Starving Parisians. - 
The Hungry Faces. — A Hundred People following a Hare. 



npiIK Parisians liad succeeded by ae- 
-L cording the capitulation of Paris, the 
occupation of the forts, the tacit agree- 
ment to the payment of a vast military 
contribution by the capital, and the ful- 
filment of other conditions as bitter, as 
humiliating, in securing an armistice of 
twenty-one days. Apropos of the con- 
tribute ii which the Prussians proposed 
to levy, Bismarck and Jules Favre had 
quite a spirited discussion. The Chan- 
cellor had. from the first, said that he 
should exact the payment of a war con- 
tribution, but he had not stated what its 
amount was likely to be. So a day or 
two before the negotiations were closed, 
M. Favre raised the subject, when the 
Chancellor's face, says the French states- 
mi n. took on an indefinable expression. 

"The city of Paris," said Bismarck, 
"is too powerful and too rich for an 
instant to permit that its ransom should 
not be worthy of it. It seems to me 
that it would be scarcely proper to ask 
for less than a milliard." 

•■ • This is certainly only an ironical 
eulogv.' 1 answered, -and 1 shall re- 
frain from considering it as serious.' 

•• But it is quite serious," replied the 
Chancellor, "and entirely in proportion 
with those that the other cities have paid 
us." 

•• • I should not like,' T said. ■ to 
break off the negotiations for a simple 
question of money; but there are exac- 
tions which render nothing possible. 
This is of the number; and, if you think 



von must persist, we must be brought to 
a stop at once' 

•• The Chancellor asked me for my es- 
timate, but I reserved my decision until 
after a conference with my colleagues. 
They fixed the maximum at five hundred 
millions. I then proposed one hundred, 
and closed the matter at two hundred 
millions. The Chancellor wished us to 
add to it three hundred millions, to be 
charged to the war indemnity. • That 
will make it.' he said. • round num- 
bers.' 

•• i had no difficulty in making him 
understand that we could treat only in 
the name- of Paris, and that it was for- 
bidden to us to prejudge the question 
of peace or war. expressly reserved for 
national decision." 

Paris, that could pay an indemnity of 
two hundred millions of francs without 
other effort than the stroke of the pen, 
could not find, for the first few days 
after the capitulation, bread enough for 
it- children. There were two or three 
davs of cruel waiting, when it seemed 
almost cert iin that the Germans would 
be chargeable with the grave fault of 
having caused a famine among the be- 
sieged French. The splendid charity of 
London and the tremendous efforts made 
in the north of France saved the situa- 
tion. No sooner was the armistice 
signed than Jules Favre telegraphed to 
London. Antwerp, and Dieppe to have 
provisions sent in with the greatest celer- 
ity. Ai i the tei ins of the new 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



.".77 



treaty, these provisions could not enter 
Paris until after the forts had been 
delivered to the Germans, and the walls 
of the garrison of the capital had been 
disarmed. Jules Favre and his col- 
leagues foresaw that, unless this were 
modified, the provisions, which were 
now pouring forward on all the railways. 
would accumulate at a distance of a few 
miles from the starving millions, and 
would there be forced to remain while 
the Germans were slowly taking their 
precautions. His mind was filled with 
dreadful visions of mobs of men and 
women howling for bread, of new mani- 
festations of the communal insurrection, 
prompted by the pangs of hunger; and 
he went straight to Bismarck and told 
him the truth. 

The Chancellor was not only startled, 
he was deeply moved. He promised 
that he would have the u hole matter 
changed forthwith, and that there need 
be no fear that the military operations 
would preventthe transportation of food. 
He even offered to the French all the 
rations that the German army could 
spare. This surplus supply of the Ger- 
mans was sufficient to nourish the popu- 
lation of Paris for a day and a half. M. 
Favre accepted it. The two men parted 
greatly touched by the mutual conces- 
sions of pride and of dignity to which 
their charitable aim had compelled them. 

Hut it was not until the afternoon of 
the 4th of February that the first train 
which had entered the Paris fortifications 
since the 17th of September rolled into 
tin' Northern railway station. This was 
the train filled with provisions which the 
population of London had contributed 
for the relief of Paris. The same train 
brought a. letter from the Lord Mayor of 
the English metropolis, saying that, at 
the first news of the nrmistice, a meeting 
of hankers, commercial men, and work- 



men had been held at the Mansion 
House, and that an appeal had been 
made to the sympathy manifest in all 
parts of the country for unfortunate 
France. A first subscription of 250,000 
francs hail been placed at the disposition 
of the English committee, and it was 
hoped that the sum raised by voluntary 
contributions would reach 2,000,000 of 
francs. This was but a trifle for a 
capital which had just agreed to pay out 
200,0O().l)ll() as ransom; but it gave the 
stricken people courage, and they seemed 
once more to breathe freely. 

The neutral zone between the French 
and German lines, and extending all the 
way around Paris, was one of the curiosi- 
ties of the siege. This was a strip of 
territory, ingress to which was forbidden 
either to French or German troops until 
the close of the deliberations of the na- 
tional assembly, which was to decide on 
peace or war. On either side of this zone 
swarmed the lately contesting soldiery. 
and the Germans had seized upon the 
opportunity to indulge in their passion for 
military pomp, and perhaps, I may say to 
air their military vanity. Their officers 
went on duty arrayed as if for a prome- 
nade at a court, or in a ball-room. They 
wore their gala uniforms, their best boots, 
their most shining spurs and immaculate 
white gloves. The Prussian officer thus 
impressed one as a superior kind of 
policeman, a police sergeant, if you will, 
who was doing duty away from home and 
who wished to impress the foreign eye 
with the sense of his national dignity. 

On the morning after the occupation 
of the forts I found some German sol- 
diers at a point between St. Cloud and 
Sevres doing what they called playing at 
French Republicans, having made tliem- 
se]\ es grotesque uniforms outof some red 
curtains which they had found. A large 
collection of ladies and gentlemen on the 



378 



EI'UOPK f.V STORM AND CALM 



other side <>f the river was looking at 
them through field-glasses and audibly 
expressing its disgust. The Prussian 
sentinel on one pier <>t' the ruined bridge 
of Sevres, and the French sentinel on what 
was I'll of the other side of the bridge, 
presented, as they glared at each other 
across the deep stream, rather a comical 

as] t. A few Germans were digging 

rifle-pits, with a view to possible future 
emergencies. 

On a high hill between St. Cloud and 
Sevres stood one of the most famous of 
Prussian batteries, a place where, for two 
weeks before the capitulation, men were 
obliged to lay perdu half the time, ex- 
pecting destruction every moment when 
they showed their heads and while they 
were tiring their cannon at the enemy. 
The Prussians all spoke with awe after the 
siege of the fearful fire of the forts upon 
ibis redoubt. It. required some little 
philosophy to go in and out of this ex- 
temporized fortification under fire, and 
the few times that I attempted it gave 

me n lively impression of the horrors of a 
bombardment. Four German officers, 
who were the first into this Crown 
Prince's Redoubt, as it was called, gave 
me an animated description of the terrors 
of the initial day of the occupation. 
" Shells every moment," said one officer ; 

"and when we fancied that the forts 
would give us an instant's respite, then 
came the fearful screeching of the gre- 
nades from the gun-boats on the Seine. 

When a parlementaire came out from 
either side we felt like men who had 
been pardoned after sentence of execu- 
tion." The French hail thrown up the 
redoubt at the beginning of the alarm 
about the capital's safety, and had in- 
tended to arm it, but had not succeeded 
when they were dislodged. Even had they 

put guns into position in it the enemy 
would have had it sooner or later. The 



Prussians took their ground here step by 
step at imminent risk, and purchased it 
at the expense of hundreds of lives. An 
officer told me, with tears in his eyes, that 
he had lost many brother officers there. 
The besiegers seemed lo have found the 
Seine gun-boats more troublesome than 
even the Parisians trusted that they might, 
prove. Lying close to the water's edge, 
and possessing the wondrous faculty of 
" making themselves scarce," they were 
very effective instruments of offense. 
They came down towards Billancourt 
with the 1 speed of a railway train, and, 
before the out-look on the redoubt could 
cry '• bombe" they threw their deadly 
missiles, the man at the helm wheeled 
around, ami away they went, leaving sor- 
row among (heir enemies. 

Climbing up the mighty zigzag path 
leading into the redoubt I found on 
the way great heaps of shells and great 
pieces of iron, some of them msty 
with blood. At the top of the hill stood 
a collection of charming houses, once fur- 
nished with the greatest taste, but then 
forever ruined. Near by was a. bomb- 
proof sunk several feel into the ground. 
and thence the officers issued their orders. 
In the principal house one long, elegant 
parlor, which had evidently belonged to 
a literary man, was filled with beds, 
where the tired men had thrown them- 
selves, regardless of danger, to sleep. 
The walls were decorated with figures of 
Turcos and Zouaves running before the 
Prussians, and a huge cartoon repre- 
sented Napoleon handing his 8 word to 
King William. The floor of this room 
was littered with fine engravings, books 
of value, and tapestries torn from the 
walls. < >n one side was a breakfast- 
table smashed, with coffee-cups and 
glasses in confusion beneath it. A 
hole in the wall and some grenade 
fragments close by explained the inter- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



379 



rupted breakfast. On the door of an out- 
house, which served as a guard-room, was 
written a German distich : — 

" How happy is he whom no cry can call out 
in take liis nightturn on the deadly redoubt ! " 

The dead seemed indeed much more 

fortunate than the living, in this dreadful 
spot. Days and nights were constantly 
full of horror and sorrow. The Germans 
had one consolation, — they had enough 
to eat. The drivers of the supply-carts 
ran imminent risk in bringing the food in 
every evening, and sometimes a shell 
sent the sheep newly killed and the great 
rounds of black-bread flying into air. 
The walls of the redoubt and the deep 
trenches covered by boughs and logs, 
lending away in every direction, were 
battered and pounded as by a giant's 
hammer. Great rows of sand-bags were 
piled high in the earth-works' top, and 
acres on acres of tree trunks, sawn has- 
tily in the neighboring parks, were placed 
along the hill at right angles. 

In the highest corner, where one could 
look one hundred feet down over the wall, 
hung a flag-pole, on which a sheet was 
run out whenever hostilities were sus- 
pended, so that a parlementaire might 
come across the river. At the mark of 
the outer line of works stood a rustic 
arbor, with a round window, in which a 
telescope was placed, and where watch- 
men sat, night and day, to gaze by light 
and listen by dark. Although this was 
the most exposed position in the redoubt 
not a shell appeared to have touched it. 
It was interesting at the close of the 
siege to visit Ville d'Avray and St. 
Cloud, where the ravages of war had 
been so great. On this same day of the 
occupation of the forts I made this excur- 
sion , and noted the swarms of French peas- 
ants hurrying back from the villages nearer 



1'aris, where they had hastily taken 
refuge, to their homes. There were 
strong men, and weak old patriots bent 
and shrivelled, housewives and buxom 
young peasant girls with babes at their 
breasts. All had packs of household 
gear upon their backs, and their faces 
bore marks of prolonged suffering and 
privation. Many of these simple people 
went mad during the siege : the horrors 
of the protracted bombardment, the in- 
credible hardships which they were called 
upon to suffer after lives of peace and 
plenty, turned their heads. 

The inhabitants of Ville d'Avray re- 
turned to Mud their houses a camp or a 
stable. The hundreds of charming little 
white stone villas — with their outlooks 
on the lovely valley where Gambetta, at 
what all men thought was merely a pause 
in his great career, came to purchase a 
tranquil nook in which to repose — had 
windows broken, and walls smashed by 
shells. The cellars were converted dur- 
ing the siege into lodgings for the olti- 
cers, physicians, and wounded. In many 
of these extemporized barracks one 
found interesting testimony to the intelli- 
gence ami decent feeling of the invaders. 
Trifles supposed to have value from as- 
sociation had been bestowed in sate 
places; carpets had been hidden away to 
save them from being made into breeches 
for the outposts ; and in many places pi- 
anos had been safely stored. The ceilings 
had been torn out, and rebuilt, with ma- 
terials calculated to resist shell-fire : and 
thus the rooms had mainly been ruined. 
The French assert that the Germans had 
a passion for clocks, and generally 
carried them off; but that they took 
frequent measures to save property 
which they might have taken or spoiled, 
is quite true. 

All the way from Versailles gate to the 
entrance of St. Cloud Dark the noblest 



380 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



trees had been felled to bar the way in 
ease of a prolonged success, such as that 
of Montretout might have been. Vines 
and fences were utilized in interlacing 
the labyrinth, until it seemed as if hardly 
a weasel might cross the track comfort- 
ably. This, with a barricade at every 
angle in tiie highways, and batteries on the 
heights around the position, would have 
been tenable perhaps for days against a 
vigorous assault. It took weeks after the 
siege to disencumber the tields. Enter- 
ing the park by the great avenue leading 
to the palace, I found to my left, as 1 
came in, a German cemetery, where the 
dozens of soldiers struck down on duty 
during the bombardment were buried. 
Before reaching the several roads which 
led through the park to Sevres and Men- 
don. I arrived at a redoubt, where :i sen- 
tinel halted me, and turned me to the 
right, — probably from habit rather than 
necessity. I had time however to obsen e 
the famous redoubt which the Jagers 
held so valiantly, and whose solid semi- 
circle of earth and stone, with the queerly 
contrived loop-holes for observations, in- 
terested me even more than ilid the huge 
guns, marked " Spandau, 1868," ranged 
in rows in the trenches below. 

I entered a long trench, sheltered art- 
fully from the missiles of death by a 
door made of woven green boughs, 
evidently the work of hands impelled by 
memories of Christmas- tide, and perhaps 
by the old burden, — 

"(> Christmas-tree, Christmas-tree, how 
faithful are thy branches ! " 

Farther on 1 found sentry-boxes 
made out of wardrobes, taken bodily 
from the villas of the neighboring 
towns. Here and there was a superb 
mahogany armoire, ruined by weather 
and soldiers' wear, marked outside and 



in with sportive verses on Moltke's 
genius, or plaintive couplets detailing 
hardship; the branches were also traced 
with comical reminiscences of the fall- 
en Empire ; the hedges and the palings 
showed dreadful gaps ; trees were shorn 
of their branches, showing how persist- 
ently Valerien had tried to make the 
still more persistent enemy unmask him- 
self. If the straw strewn by the hedge 
could have spoken it would have had its 
scalp to mourn ; the satyr had lost his 
horns, the lion his tail. The live 
great avenues radiating through the 
park from the monumental observatory, 
called the " Diogenes Lantern," were 
scarcely recognizable. The frozen ruts 
were deep enough to lie down in. 
Away below the hill I saw a dense 
smoke slowly rising. It came from St.. 
Cloud, burning for the last eight days. At 
the palaces the evidences of ruin were 
even greater. Superb chairs, on which 
the grandees of Europe had reposed, 
lay scattered upon the <il>utis, every trace 
of their brilliant coloring washed from the 
upholstery by the rains and snows. In a 
glade near the chdtecm were long rows 
of wooden palings, garnished fantasti- 
cally with broken ornaments of floor and 
ceiling from the palace. The circular 
park, with its gorgeous orange trees and 
tasteful statues, was as filthy as a barn- 
yard. Nearly every statue was scarred, 
seared, blackened. The palace was a 
shapeless m:\ss of stone, seamed with the 
comet-like tracks of shells. One could 
scarcely walk across the floors inside. 
They were heaped ten feet high, with 
great pieces of the roof, with torn anil 
disjointed gildings. The lower halls 
were occupied by dozens of soldiers, and 

hundreds were swarming al t the 

environs, picking up bits of shell and 
stone as mementos. 

A few steps to the right brought one 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



381 



to the valley, where the beautiful lake 
was once surrounded with sylvan statues. 
Scarcely one remained standing. From 
the terrace, at the Seine front of the 
chdteau, cine could judge even more 
accurately of the ruin. The devastation 
of the invasion of 1815 is still remem- 
bered with horror in France ; but this 
had been more terrible. Then, as now, 
foreign soldiery had wandered in the 
gardens. The books of the library, in 
1815-, were trampled into the earth, and 
the walls were disfigured. But n^w one 
could not find a book or trace the outlines 
of a picture, nor yet distinguish the 
salon of Mars from that of Apollo. 
Elegant architectural nooks were all 
crushed out of shape, battered into 
oblivion. 

Groups of officers on the terrace were 
scanning the French bank of the Seine 
through their field-glasses and drinking 
wine out of bottles of which they had 
unearthed a good store that morning. 
High above the hill, where the church 
spire of St. Cloud stood uninjured 
amid the almost universal ruin, villas 
were smouldering. Descending into the 
town I found that a superb conservatory 
had been utilized as a stable, and that 
many residences had shared the same 
fate. The great alley which runs 
through the town from the lower park, 
bordered on either side by booths whose 
owners had not had time to open them 
for the annual fair in 1870, was crowded 
with soldiers curiously examining the 
toys and bonbon boxes in the booths. 
One soldier took a child's drum from a 
booth and hung it about his neck. A 
sergeant stepped forward: "Fool, put 
down that silly thing ! Do you want 
five days in the guard house? " The ex- 
plorations were consequently stopped, 
and the explorers went to warm them- 
selves around fires made of beams taken 



from the ruined houses. The town in 
its garment of slow (ire offered a pictu- 
resque spectacle. 

The French authorities had expressed 
their desire that during the armistice no 
strangers should enter Paris unless they 
had pressing reason therefor. But to 
those of us whose sympathies were with 
Paris, and whose anxieties for the fate 
of hundreds of friends within the walls 
were daily growing greater, this ex- 
pression of the authorities had but little 
weight. Application at the Prussian 
head-quarters for passes over neutral 
ground were refused, on the plea that 
they would displease the French. Daily 
visits were regularly, however, made by 
the French residents at Versailles. 
Women and children escaped between the 
bayonets of the sentinels and ran away 
to the surrounding villages, in the hope 
of procuring food or of hearing news of 
friends. In all that strip of country 
from St. Denis, Sarcelles, Ecouen, Vil- 
leneuve-le-Bel, Gonesse, etc., the most 
frightful destitution now prevailed. 
Bread was not to be obtained for any 
money. Many of the inhabitants who 
returned in haste from Paris to their 
homes lived on rotten cabbages, which 
lay about the fields ; and when one found 
a frozen carrot or potato he esteemed 
himself fortunate. From Versailles I went 
through St. Germain, thence to Epinai 
and St. Denis, and so on to Ecouen, for 
the express purpose of studying the 
condition of the people after the occupa- 
tion of the forts. I bent my course over 
the desolate country to Argenteuil, by 
the lower road, which had been so dan- 
gerous on the occasion of our last jour- 
ney around Paris. No sentinel barred 
the way. The birds were singing in all 
the trees as I passed, and the soldiers, 
beating back the clamorous bread-de- 
manding crowds at Argenteuil, simply 



382 EUROPE IX STORM AND CADI. 

asked me my nationality and let me new lesson concerning the honors of 

pass. war. 

I found the railway bridge broken into Epinai seemed visited by the veu- 
fragments, tin- rails bent and thrown geance of God. It was a small town 
across the track, wine and ice cellars for a suburban one ; and from its 
along the road converted into bomb- boundaries one could sec the grinning 
proofs. At Argenteuil many a well- guns of Forts La Breche and the Double 
dressed person addressed me in terms Crown. The Prussian commanders had 
which almost commanded tears, begging ordered an inundation of the roads in the 
for a morsel of food if I had it. Alas ! I neighborhood some time before; and it 
was as badly provided as most of the sup- was partially successful. The routes 
plicants. Old women .solicited alms as towards Paris therefore resembled small 
they sank by the wayside, overcome; rivers. There remained hardly a house 
little children, thin and pale, cried in Epinai untouched by shot or shell. 
bitterly as their parents dragged them Barricades were still standing in a hun- 
wearily onward. Sometimes I met died places. I saw a bulwark twenty- 
carts driven by soldiers who had been four feet lone, entirely made out of fur- 
sent out to forage, and was clad to see niture, — rich chairs, tables, and sofas 
that in many cases the sturdy driver and piled up in confusion, and carpets 
his guard had dismounted to give stopping up the chinks. 
fainting women and children a ride on From one of the half-ruined forts a 
the straw. In this case the conquerors long procession of German cavalry in 
had obtained their apotheosis. The fatigue uniforms was slowly winding, 
good old words, which could have been and a few trumpets were sounding in the 
so fittingly applied to these soldiers, distance. As I turned from the neigh- 
came into my mind: '-lie drinketh no borhood of St. Denis to move to Feouen, 
blood, but thirstetli after honor. He is I came upon endless lines of starving 
greedy of victory, but never satisfied Parisians, hastening out to buy, bee-, or 
with mercy. In fight terrible as be- borrow food; and I saw a spectacle 
Cometh a captain; in conquest mild as which I shall never see again, and which 
bcseeineth a king." struck me with astonishment: — 

From Argenteuil forward to Epinai, A man of humble appearance had 

near St. Denis, 1 (-(instantly met long caught a hare escaping through a hedge, 

lines of carts laden with household had knocked it on the head, and with an 

goods of returning refugees. The most air of supreme content was moving 

affecting sight was the hundreds of bare- briskly along the road in the same di- 

headed women scrambling in the field rection which I was taking. Behind 

for frozen vegetables and the lines of him followed at least one hundred l'ari- 

half-svmpathetic soldiers off duty look- sians, all with their eyes fixed with an 

ing curiously on. Near here I met the expression of intense longing upon this 

Crown Prince of Saxony, attended by a unhappy hare, hanging limp and lifeless 

superb cavalry guard, galloping away from its captor's back. There were 

from head-quarters at Margency. But, people in that hundred who would have 

as lie gazed on the singular scene, his knocked the lucky possessor of the little 

handsome young face glowed with sym- animal on the head had each not been 

pathy, and I felt that he had learned a. restrained by the presence of the other. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



383 



I have not the slightest desire, .ifter the 
lapse of many years, to exaggerate an 
impression which was at the time 
intensely powerful; but I felt then, as I 
feel now, that I was looking upon men 
and women actuated by the same almost 
uncontrollable murderous impulse that 
human beings feel slowly overpowering 
them when they are drifting together at 
sea in an open boat, suffering from 



hunger and thirst. The wolfishness of 
the gaze, the stealthiness of the tread, 
and the inexpressible longing on all 
those people's faces were at once fasci- 
nating and repulsive. Nothing could 
give, better than this little incident, an 
idea of the extremities of suffering' and 
privation to which the populace of Paris 
had been driven by the siege. 



384 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FORTY-ONE. 

A Great Historic Occasion. — The Assembly at Bordeaux. — Thiers in His New Rule. -A Political 

Tragedy in the Theatre de laC :die. -The Protest of the Alsatians. — TheFinal Impeachment 

of the Empire. — A Strange Scene -- Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, and the other Exiles. —The Vote 
for Peace. A Stern Renunciation. -The Mayor of Strasbourg Dies of a Broken Heart. 



IN Bordeaux we seemed to be in 
another country, if not in another 
world, after the excitement of the elec- 
tions in Paris. The constant quarrels 
of the various political factions, which 
were beginning to exercise their hostility 
now that the siege had ended, and the 
increasing misery on every hand, had 
not seemed abnormal until we got out 
of the lines of the war, and came to the 
compact and picturesque southern city, 
where till the natives were clamorous for 
the continuation of the struggle. Peo- 
ple who came out of the anguish and 
turmoil could not refrain from reminding 
the southern populations that they would 
not be so anxious for war if they had 
seen :i little more of it. But these crit- 
ics were set aside as fritters. Had not 
Gambetta resigned his high office, 
although it must have required much 
self-denial to do so. when he heard a 
hint of the negotiations for peace? Was 
there not strength enough in the great 
south, with its vast resources and its 
sturdy people, for the organization of a 
new defence, which should oppose a 
linn resistance to the Prussian armies? 
So let the Assembly meet and let it part ; 
but let it not dare to hint at Prussian 
desires, or, most especially, at cession of 

territory. 

It took thirty hours to get from Paris 
to Bordeaux, a journey usually accom- 
plished in twelve hours. The permits 
to leave the Qapital, permits which depu- 



ties and private soldiers, citizens, and 
strangers alike were forced to have, 
were elaborate documents, printed in 
French and German, and decorated with 
numerous stamps. They described ac- 
curately the appearance, profession, 
and object of the journey of the person 
to whom they were issued. When the 
train had crossed the neutral lines and 
arrived on Prussian ground at Vitry, a 
white-gloved and elegantly uniformed 
Hessian officer came to collect the 
passes ; and while they were rigidly in- 
spected the train waited tin hour. It 
was somewhat amusing to observe the 
conceit of the Germans who came and 
ranged themselves along the platform, 
evidently that the French notables might 
observe their uniforms. The Parisians, 
however, were fully equal to the occa- 
sion, and when they saw anything worth 
praising in the German military scheme, 
they freely praised it. Rut they were 
quite as free in their adverse criticisms. 
It was only when they saw a ruined 
house or broken bridge that they mut- 
tered against the " Prussian vermin." 

At Fort d'lvry we saw a Prussian 
column, several battalions strong, wind- 
ing its way among throngs of French- 
men who had evidently come home to 
see what was left out of the general 
ruin. At Choisy-le-Roi, there were the 
same sad-faced people searching for the 
remnants of their properties. Here 
homes were completely ruined ; walls 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



MS.-) 



were toppled over, streets encumbered 
with rubbish, fragments of shell and 
shot. The great bridge lay in the bed 
of the Seine, forming a kind of dam, 
over which the usually tranquil water 
was foaming. 

As we moved away from Choisy-le- 
Roi, we saw another Prussian column 
moving in, the men's uniforms covered 
with dirt, and the officers shouting at 
the laggards. The peasants at each 
station pointed out the track of the war 
to the Parisians, and were listened to 
with great interest. " Do the Prussians 
annoy and abuse you?" was the question 
often asked ; and " No, not much," was 
the invariable reply. 

At Vierzon we were outside the 
Prussian lines, thanks to the vigorous 
action of the inhabitants some days 
before the capitulation. The Prussians 
had left only a small force there, and 
the Yierzonese, after having been pil- 
laged until they could stand it no longer, 
took their hitherto concealed arms, and, 
after much loss of life on both sides, 
drove out the invaders. The armistice 
intervened in time to save the town from 
the vengeance of the discomfited enemy. 

Our train was transferred to the 
branch line leading to Limoges and Pe- 
rigueux, and towards daylight arrived at 
the latter town, where we found thou- 
sands of Mobiles going in all directions, 
taking up positions to meet the enemy in 
case the new Assembly should declare 
for a continuance of the war. Here a 
train filled with deputies, among whom 
were Roehefort in a Garibaldian red 
shirt, Schoelcher, and others of the Rad- 
ical Paris delegation, was joined to ours. 
When we reached Bordeaux that after- 
noon we found that the Red Party had 
prepared a formidable demonstration for 
the arrival of its leaders: and this was 
a gloomy indication for the future. On 



our way through Angers, Pithouviers, 
and numerous other towns around which 
there had been famous battles, we had 
seen the Prussians in great force, but 
had seen few native inhabitants of the 
unlucky villages and cities. Here and 
there a Prussian in fatigue uniform 
wore a French cap, which he had picked 
up on a battle-field. In some of the 
French railway stations, which had been 
fortified, French workmen were engaged 
in taking down the stockades and level- 
ling the earthworks, — most eloquent 
protestation against the prolongation of 
hostilities. Throughout the occupied 
country there was but one spirit manifest, 
— a spirit of conciliation; but where 
the heavy hand of the invader had not 
been felt there was no doubt of the war- 
like determination of the people. 

Bordeaux was proud of the distinction 
conferred upon it, and offered as a meet- 
ing place of the Assembly its beautiful 
theatre, which stands in one of the many 
handsome squares of the city. We 
found that at least forty thousand 
strangers had flocked into Bordeaux to 
witness the final act of the great drama. 
The hotels were crowded, the streets 
were filled with elegant equipages, in 
which the Parisians, dressed in black, 
the color of their despair, were con- 
stantly parading. Hundreds of soldiers 
wandered to and fro, many of them, 
I suspect, never getting to the regiments 
which were awaiting them. Every day 
detachments of awkward-looking youth, 
with new guns in their big hands, went 
through the principal streets, with un- 
practised drummers at their head ; ami. 
on the principal square, lone lines of 
boys, at morning, noon, and night, were 
going through military drill under the 
guidance of gruff and red-nosed old ser- 
geants. < )n this same square stood three 
hundred cannon, which had but recently 



386 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



arrived from America : and in the great 
shining river were moored numerous 
ships, said to contain ample store of 
muskets and other weapons from the 
same sympathetic country beyond the sea. 
No National Assembly had been held 
in France since 1849, and, as the actual 
machinery and reports and electoral 
commissions had to be conducted with 
the greatest care, it was not strange that 
the great body of representatives accom- 
plished little before the middle of Febru- 
ary. Postal communications were sus- 
pended in forty-three departments of 
France ; and, although Count Von Bis- 
marck had expressed his desire that the 
elections should be conducted without 
the slightest interference from the Ger- 
mans, it was well known that all letters 
and telegrams from the French govern- 
ment to its prefects and other local func- 
tionaries were opened and carefully read 
by the Germans. A week after the 
convocations not more than half the 
deputies had succeeded in reaching Bor- 
deaux ; and tin 1 fifteen committees into 
which the seven hundred and fifty-three 
members were usually divided were in a 
very incomplete state. The President 
was even obliged to announce that twen- 
ty-five members would constitute a. full 
committee for the first few days. Tin 1 
Orleanists were said to lie working with 
great earnestness, and, until the I'arisdel- 
cgation arrived, then' were rumors every 
day that an Orleanist i-dh/i d'Etat might 
lie expected. The fifteen journals of 
Bordeaux kept the air tilled with most 
astonishing rumors, magnifying every 
trilling incident into a danger for the 
country. But the local National Guard 
behaved most sensibly, ami organized a 
service, through the town and around the 
meeting place of the Assembly, which 
effectually prevented riots and attempts 
at l'iots. 



On the 13th tlie curtain rose on the 
first session in the great theatre. An 
aged ex-deputy of the old Republican 
Assembly was called to the chair. At his 
right sat the Moderates and the Royal- 
ists in very great numbers, conspicuous 
among them being M. Thiers and the 
Duke Decazes. On the left, calm and 
passionless, sat M. Jules Favre, bowed 
down by work and grief, and evidently 
anxious to escape particular notice. 
Next in order to him were Jules Simon, 
Emmanuel Arago, Pelletan, < rlais-Bizoin, 
Gamier-Pages, the temporary minister 
of marine, and the stiff and decorous 
General Le F16, Minister of War. 

Gambetta, who after his resignation 
from the government of National De- 
fense had been chosen as their delegate 
by the people of no less than tell depart- 
ments, was not present on this occasion ; 
but the thin audience of diplomats, 
ladies, and the favored journalists who 
had obtained tickets, was continually 
asking for him. The story of his organ- 
ization of the defense had set the seal 
upon his renown, which was now dis- 
tinctly great. 

Garibaldi hobbled in early in the after- 
noon, and sat on a. bench remote from 
any party, an action which was misin- 
terpreted and commented upon with the 
amusing French attention to small details. 
In the diplomatic loge, Lord Lyons, the 
Prince De Metternich, and the Chevalier 
Nigra of Italy were the only noticeable 
figures. After the opening speech was 
finished the action of the old hero was 
seen to have its significance, for he had 
sent a letter to the President's desk, say- 
ing that he renounced all claim to the 
title of deputy, with which he had been 
honored in several departments ; and he 
sought later on to explain his reason for 
this refusal to accept the honor offered 
him, but the Right started a great tumult, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



387 



which almost caused .a violent encounter 
between the opposing parties in the 
Assembly. The spectators in the galleries 
shouted and shook their lists like mad 
men and women ; and all this for nothing 
at all, save that Garibaldi had tried to 
make a speech ; that he 
had resigned as deputy, 
and was consequently out 
of order. 

At this session Jules 
Favre made a plain and 
straightforward speech, 
in which he gave into the 
hands of the representa- 
tives of the people the 
resignation of the gov- 
ernment of National De- 
fense. "We are ready," 
he said, "to answer to 
you for all our acts, con- 
vinced that we shall meet 
in their examination only 
the loyalty and justice 
by which you will lie in- 
spired in all your deliber- 
ations." This speech of 
Jules Favre made a great 
sensation in Bordeaux. 
To an Anglo -Saxon 
nothing seemed more rea- 
sonable and proper than 
that the head of the 
provisional government 
should quietly lay his 
powers at the people's 
feet when the occasion 
demanded it; but the mass of the 
suspicious and questioning southern 
French had imagined that there would 
be a conflict for the possession of author- 
ity ; that M. Jules Favre and his col- 
leagues would object to giving iqi their 
places, and doubtless M. Favre's correcl 
and dignified attitude increased the faith 
of these southern populations in the 



Republic. None who were in the theatre 
that day will forget the kindly voice, the 
classic head crowned with the silver 
hair, the eloquent, musical voice, that 
told the French people the value and 
dignity of conscience, and declared fear- 




GARIBALDI AT BORDEAUX. 

lesslv to them that they were beaten 
and chastised for their sins of omissi.ni 
and commission. Jules Favre counselled 
the French nation to hasten its decision 
in this Assembly , and lie was wise. In a 
day or two it was evident that M. Thiers 
and the party grouped directly around 
him were to have the complete control 
of events at Bordeaux. The venerable 



388 



EUROPE /X STORM AXD CALM. 



statesman had taken up his abode at the 
H6tel de France, where he was within 
a fewminutes' walk of the Assembly, and 
where all the leading statesmen, politi- 
cians, and generals also installed them- 
selves. 

M. Thiers, like all the other Repub- 
lican politicians who had conic directly 
into contact with the Germans, realized 
that the Assembly must declare peace 
rather than war ; and he said so pretty 
frankly in the interviews which he 
accorded to the seekers aftertruth. The 
Assembly was speedy to recognize M. 
Thiers as its leader, and while it placed at 
its head as its working president M. Jules 
(.revv. destined afterwards to become 
the President of the Republic, its first 
political proposition was that M. Thiers 
should be made chief of Executive 
Power, exercising his functions under 
the control of the National Assembly, 
with the advice and counsel of ministers 
to lie chosen and presided over by him- 
self. Although all parties recognized 
him as a sincere patriot, all the ad- 
vanced and radical Republicans feared 
that he would try to bring back an Oilcan - 
ist. He repeatedly declared that he had 
no Orleanist sympathies, no hostile in- 
tentions to the newly launched Republic, 
and nothing made him more indignant 
than hints that lie was trilling' with the 
liberties of the people. 

Early in the session the deputies from 
the departments of the Lower Rhine, 
the Upper Rhine, the Moselle, and the 
Meurthe presented their protest and decla- 
ration, stating that Alsace and Lorraine 
did not wish to be alienated from France ; 
that, associated for more than two cen- 
turies with the French in g 1 as in evil 

fortune, they had always sacrificed them- 
selves to the national grandeur ; and that 
they signified to Germany and to the 
world their firm determination to remain 



French whatever might befall them. " Eu- 
rope," they said in their declaration. " can 
neither permit nor ratify the desertion of 
Alsace-Lorraine by France." The clos- 
ing words of this document were very 
eloquent. "We hereby proclaim," said 
the signers of the declaration. " the for- 
ever inviolable right of the Alsatians 
and the people of Lorraine to remain 
members of the great French family, and 
we swear both for ourselves and for those 
whom we represent, as well as for our 
children and our children's children, eter- 
nally and by every possible and practical 
means to insist upon this right against 
the usurpers." M. Keller, an eloquent 
and passionate man, was the leader of 
this delegation, and some of his speeches, 
in which he urged the country not to give 
up the provinces so firmly demanded by 
Germany, were characterized by great 
elevationof thought and beauty of diction. 
At the close of February the country 
had become fully enlightened as to the 
necessity of speedy peace. The capital 
was menaced with a huge insurrection, 
and it was thought prudent to prepare for 
a government at Versailles ; but how to 
return there when it was occupied by the 
conqueror? Whichever way the deputies 
turned they were confronted by this hate- 
ful question of peace. There were as 
many opinions as men. Louis Blanc, 
Victor Hugo. Edgar Quinet, Rochefort, 
Schielchcr, Gambetta, ami Henri Martin 
the historian ; Delescluze, with the shadow 
of his coining fate already on his gloomy 
brow; Lockroy, Lane, Brisson, Edmond 
Adam, Clemenceau, the great and good 
M. Littiv. Floquet, and so many others 
who have since taken a prominent part 
in the conduct of their country's des- 
tinies. — each had his scheme for steer- 
ing the nation through the breakers, and 
no one seemed willing to yield to any 
other. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



389 



There were moments when a vote of 
.any distinct proposition for peace seemed 
impossible. 

M. Thiers had been elected deputy 
from twenty-six departments; conse- 
quently there was but little opposition 
to the confirmation of his powers as chief 
of the executive, and in the session of 
the 10th he presented his new cabinet, in 
which Jules Favre, Jules Simon, and other 
distinguished Republicans had prominent 
places. After this was dune, the Assem- 
bly took a recess ; and meantime M. 
Thiers returned to Paris, and went to 
Versailles, to see what was the final will 
of the invader. 

At the close of the month he returned 
quite worn out, the railway accident on 
the journey and the species of prostra- 
tion into which he had fallen, consequent 
on the heavy demands of the Prussians, 
seeming likely to cause a dangerous ill- 
ness ; but the old man's fiery soul soon 
revived the wearied frame, and he had 
been in town hardly an hour before he 
was at the Assembly, talking freely with 
the members in the committee rooms, 
and preparing his colleagues fur a vote 
upon the final act, which had been elab- 
orated during his absence, and which 
was conceived as follows: — 

"The Chief of Executive Power of the 
French Republic proposes to the National 
Assembly the act, the tenor of which is 
as under : — 

" The National Assembly, suffering 
the consequence of deeds with which it 
had nothing to do, approves the pre- 
liminaries of peace, the text of which is 
annexed, ami which were signed at Ver- 
sailles, on the 2fith of February, 1871, by 
the Chief of Executive Power and the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French 
Republic on the one hand ; 

" And on the other hand by the German 
Chancellor, Count Otto Von Bismarck- 



Schoenhausen, the Minister of State and 
of Foreign Affairs of His Majesty the 
King of Bavaria, the Minister of For- 
eign Affairs to His Majesty the King of 
Wurtemburg, and the Minister of State 
representing His Royal Highness the 
Grand Duke of Baden : 

"And authorizes the Chief of Executive 
Power and the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
to exchange preliminaries of peace, the 
rcailing of which has been made in the 
National Assembly, and the authentic 
copy of which remains in the archives 
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." 

It was said that M. Thiers lost his tem- 
per during the final discussion with the 
German chancellor, and cried in a fretful 
humor, " Well, take the whole of France, 
and make the best of it!" but soon af- 
terwards was subdued and solemn, and 
proceeded to the serious business of the 
harrowing session. 

The 1st of March, the day after M. 
Thiers's return from Versailles, was 
full of gloom. M. Thiers had asked the 
Chamber to act with all speed, reasons 
of the greatest gravity exacting that the 
treaty should be at once- ratified. lie 
added that ••the ratification would be 
the signal for the return of our prisoners 
and the evacuation of a part of our ter- 
ritory, including Paris." This was un- 
derstood to mean that the Prussians 
were in Paris. The newspapers without 
exception appeared with their pages in 
mourning; the ladies on the streets 
were all in black; the soldiers and offi- 
cers on duty around the theatre where 
the Assembly met wore crape upon their 
sleeves and on their weapons ; there 
was no enthusiasm manifest as 51. 
Thiers went to the Assembly, nor on his 
return. 

On the Place ile la. Comedie there 
was a motley crowd, which waited all 
through the session to hear the first 



o90 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

news of the decision as to the country's and confused to find that it ushered me 

destiny. The soldiers formed a hollow into the presidential '";/<', M. Thiers 

square, which kept back the masses doubtless having, with the courtesy tra- 

froin the approaches to the theatre ; and ditional in legislative circles, conferred 

all around them were hundreds of soldiers his best, ticket upon his sternest adver- 

and officers, in great variety of uniform, sary. The great theatre was but dimly 

— Francs-Tireurs, in leather leggings, lighted; but there was no doubt that the 

Alpine hats, and short swords; brawny deputies were in their places, for a roar 

young Mobiles, with sunburnt faces and of dispute came up from the orchestra 

awkward gray coats ; showy gendarmes, stalls, and the President was furiously 

in blue and black, with folds of white, ringing his bell. In the loge cle la Presi- 

silver cord upon their breasts, and with ilrm-t>, Madame Thiers, surrounded by 

their carbines at the saddle-bows of a. little group of charming girls, was 

their horses; rusty-looking liners in quietly viewing the scene, and the vari- 

liattle-stained uniforms, who were much ous Radicals were pointed out to her 

petted and patted on the back by enthu- and to the other guests by one of the 

siastie ladies ; priests, division generals, priests of her parish church in Paris, 

newspaper men, army contractors, for- whose comments on his political enemies 

eigners, German spies, scores upon scores were quaint and satirical. 

of men packed together, and waiting The new deputies, who liad been pre- 

patienlly for the close of the historic de- vented by exceptional circumstances in 

liberations. their departments from arriving at the 

Trumpets rattled, and bugles brayed, first session, were now all in their 

Victor Hugo, followed by a little group places; therefore the President and all 

of Radical literary men, went through the the members of his bureau had been 

hollow square, hearing on every side placed upon the stage. The cm tain was 

whispers of admiration. No one seemed up, and displayed M. Gri'vy with his 

to have the courage to speak aloud, head bowed on his desk. One might 

The Alsatian deputies were respectfully almost have fancied him at prayer, 

saluted. Gambetta had sent word that before he touched the bell a second time 

he would come to the Assembly only and arose. He uttered but one sentence, 

when the discussion on peace began, according the tribune to an Alsatian dep- 

Gambetta was ill, worried, insane, — said uty, who at once began a vigorous 

rumors in the crowd. — could not sleep protest in the name of those whom he 

nights, wandered up and down in his represented against the giving up of the 

room, gazing out of window. The provinces whence he came. Then fol- 

tremendous efforts which he had made lowed a hubbub. This called the 

since September had told greatly upon painful matter too quickly to the surf ace. 

him. lie was pale, his thick black We were first to hear a lengthy report on 

locks were in disorder, and there was a. the peace preliminaries. Put now came 

suggestive stoop in his shoulders, from other protests against the cession of Al- 

whieh he never recovered. saee and Lorraine, the members standing 

By g 1 fortune, and the courtesy of like Leonidas and his comrades in the 

(he thief of Executive Power to M. gap. 

Louis Plane, I secured a ticket for the A little way off, in a, quiet street, a 

session, and was somewhat surprised man in the prime of life, and until re- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



391 



cently robust in health, lay broken in 
spirit and dying. Every few minutes 
some one of the deputies sent from the 
Assembly to inquire after the brave- 
hearted man, who could not hear to see 
the disgrace of his country 
and the dear old province 
whence he came. The phy- 
sicians said he would not live 
until the morrow, this fine- 
spirited Mayor of Strasbourg, 
and that lie might depart 
with the turn of the tide 
from light to dark. 

On the minister's bench, 
at the front on the right, M. 
Thiers and Jules Simon wen- 
in close conference, and 
shaking their heads dubious- 
ly from time to time. M. 
Simon was doubtless telling 
his chief how strong the Al- 
satian protests had grown 
since M. Thiers's visit to Ver- 
sailles, and what a battle 
they might expect that after- 
noon. 

Now came a huge man 
with a balky manuscript. It 
was M. Le Franc, with the 
report of the dolorous pro- 
ceedings at Prussian head- 
quarters, and what his com- 
mittee, charged to examine 
the aforesaid, thought about 
it. On the leftthere wasgreat 
agitation. Hugo, Louis Blanc, 
Floquet.and others took scats 
together, as if arranging some preconcerted 
movement. The report of the committee 
seemed to evolve nothing except the 
horrible consequences that would over- 
whelm France should she refuse the 
treaty. "The prolongation of the armis- 
tice," said the reporter, " is refused. 
The forts of Paris are occupied, the 



enceinte is disarmed. Farther away 
the inimical armies are massed at the 
extreme limits of the district, covered by 
Ihr armistice. There they face our 
disorganized armies and our population, 




VICTOR HUGO AT BORDEAUX. 

that is already beginning to hope for 
peace." These words grated harshly on 
the ears of some patriots in the gallery, 
and they shouted out : " You are a Prus- 
sian, and so is every one who talks as 
you do ! " 

There was no applause when the re- 
porter bad finished. Every one had 



392 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



listened with breathless interest, and 
knew how he should vote. Meantime 
Edgar Quinet, representing the Republi- 
can Left, entered the tribune, and claimed 
to be heard because h«' had studied the 
policy of Germany and Prussia for a 
great part of his lifetime. He was 
listened to with impatience. "The 
feudal state of Germany," he said, 
•■ avenges itself upon our free democratic 
institutions by making them contribute 
to our ruin. By this treaty peace is not 
secured, but war, and war to the knife 
will soon be resumed." He declared, 
" Prussia wishes not only our fall, but 
our annihilation." 

M. Thiers started up, half angered on 
hearing M. Quinet thus denounce the 
preliminaries of peace. Meantime, 
through the crowds at the foot of the 
tribune, a stout figure was vigorously 
making its way. Five minutes after- 
wards this figure was in the tribune, and 
order in the Assembly was submerged 
in the most frightful confusion that ever 
upset a legislative body. The mention 
of one almost-forgotten but odious 
name had done this. A deputy from 
Strasbourg had ventured to say that the 
proposed treaty was tit- to be signed by 
only one man, and that that man was 
Napoleon III. At the utterance of this 
name, which awoke so many unpleasant 
memories, not only all deputies present 
reproached the orator, but the hundreds 
of spectators muttered their comments. 

There was great excitement on the 
ministerial bench, for the treaty had 
been called odious and a death-warrant 
Just as ~S\. Thiers was about to reply, 
and had begun his speech in an angry 
voice, someone was heard defending the 
Emperor. Every member of the As- 
sembly turned to see who it was. The 
staid and respectable form of M. Conti, 
special secretary to the late Emperor for 



many years, was now seen. M. Conti 
demanded permission to address the 
Assembly, and as he stepped down to 
cross the aisle to the tribune a perfect 
howl of rage and derision followed him. 
The agitation could not have been 
greater hail the ex-Emperor suddenly 
appeared as the embodied misfortune of 
France, the walking shadow of Woerth 
and Sedan and Wilhelmshohe. The 
Alsatian deputy gave way only for a mo- 
ment, and Conti proceeded to ascend the 
tribune steps. As he went up, a man 
near the tribune darted out from a group 
of friends, and was about to seize the 
daring Imperialist and hurl him down to 
the floor below ; but two or three caught 
him by the arms. Yet he struggled to get 
away, screamed for vengeance, did this 
excitable Langlois of Paris, — Langlois 
who fought so well at Montretont, — and 
the tumult continued. From gallery and 
from diplomatic loges came expressions 
of surprise, anger, and fright. Ladies 
arose as if about to leave their seats. 
The President tried in vain to maintain 
order; but Conti, with indomitable Cor- 
sica'.] persistance, hail sealed the tribune, 
and, despite the shouts, opened his lips 
to defend his late protector. The 
spectacle of the excitable, passionate 
audience looking up at him as he spoke 
must have almost appalled him. There 
were three men standing at the tribune's 
loot, looking as if they could almost have 
stilled him as he came down. Put Conti 
was very cool and collected. lie had 
heard the cry of the Paris mob, and had 
received deskfuls of mysterious threat- 
ening letters ; had seen many an advent- 
ure in political life ; had been a member 
of another constitutional assembly, and 
voted for Cavaignac, as he afterwards 
said. That vote served his purpose but 
little. lie had gone over to the Impe- 
rialist faction, and been successively 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



:\'x\ 



member of the Council of State, special 
secretary, and even senator. He had 
lost a fine position by the Emperor's fall, 
but could not refrain from putting his 
head in through the curtains, and saying 
once more : " Here we are again." 

His plan was clear. He had heard 
that the Assembly proposed to declare 
the total wreck of the Empire. He 
feared it, and wished to rally the small 
forces at his disposition. There was 
perhaps a faint hope that universal 
suffrage might be diverted to the profit 
of the Empire once more. 

lint he was compelled by the storm of 
hisses and reproaches to descend from 
the tribune, and, coming down, he met 
Victor Hugo, who glared fiercely at him 
and then turned his back upon him. 

A little knot of men, who had been 
consulting together for some ten minutes, 
now broke up. One of them went into 
the tribune, and in tremulous tones 
read a motion, hailed with furious bra- 
vos, confirming the downfall of Na- 
poleon III. aud his dynasty, as al- 
ready pronounced by universal suffrage, 
and declaring that dynasty responsible 
for the ruin, the invasion, aud the dis- 
memberment of France. 

.Some few Bonapartists endeavored 
once more to protest ; lint this was too 
much for the patience of M. Thiers, who 
fairly scrambled into the tribune, and, 
standing in his favorite attitude, with 
one hand placed on the front of the 
tribune, began a fiery little speech. " I 
have heard," he said, in his piping voice, 
•' from the lips of sovereigns, that the 
Imperial princes you represent say that 
they were not blameworthy for the dec- 
laration of war; that it was France who 
should bear the blame. They say that 
ive are the culpable ones. I wish firmly 
to deny this, in the presence of all 
Europe. No ! France did not wish for 



the war," — and here the old gentleman 
began fiercely to pound the tribune rail, — 
" it was you, who now protest, you alone, 
who wanted war ! Do not talk to us of 
the services rendered to France by the 
Empire ! " and, giving a final bang to 
the rail, he retired indignantly. 

Every member of the Assembly was 
now on his feet, aud shouts of assent to 
M. Thiers's statement were heard from 
every quarter except one. The Corsi- 
cans rallied, however, and a lawyer from 
Bastia, named Gavini, attempted to 
speak ; but he was silenced, and when the 
President called on all who agreed to the 
proposition declaring the Empire dead 
to rise, only six — the half-dozen Impe- 
rial deputies — remained seated. 

Conti had certainly hastened the fu- 
neral of the Second Empire. 

Thenceforward the members of the 
Left had the session in their hands, aud 
proceeded in regular order with their 
protests against the treaty. M. Bam- 
berger, the Alsatian deputy, who had 
unwittingly provoked the Conti incident, 
painted a glowing picture of the devo- 
tion of Strasbourg to France and her 
appeals for help. Then came Victoi 
Hugo, with his slow and labored delivery, 
his long pauses for effect, his antitheses, 
his periods of passionatedeclamation, and 
his lion-like glances around the Assem- 
bly. His speech was disappointing, lint 
was listened to with profound attention. 
His eulogy of Paris made the deputies 
uneasy. This was not a time to talk of 
heroisms: we were making peace; and, 
when he spoke of delivering Germany 
from her Emperor, even as Germany had 
delivered France from hers, a smile flit- 
ted across the faces of the deputies. 
The great poet was not in his best form 
in these early days after his return. It 
was only a short time after this session 
that he went out of the tribune in a lit of 



:'»'.! I EUROPE IN STORM AXP CALM. 

anger, wrote his resignation, and stalked and tottering frame next appealed for 

away from the Assembly, because he had peace, and the venerable warrior thought 

not lie 'ii listened to with what he consid- it his duty to cast a stone into the camp 

ered propel' attention. of the Left, whose definitions in favor 

The only other speakersof importance of the moral right he did not recognize, 
on this memorable day were M. Vache- " I fear," he said, " thai such discus- 
rot, the noted philosopher, and at that sions will make the enemy lose its re- 
time one "f the Mayors of Paris, who spect lor this Assembly." 
spoke earnestly and with deep conviction Deputies from the department of the 
for peace, because, in his opinion, war was Vosges, who thought it their duty to 
impossible. Time, he maintained, would abstain from voting because they could 
show the Prussians that they could not not bear the thought of prolonged war, 
deal with populations as with lands. yet would not vote their own separation 

Louis Blanc hail reserved for himself from their countrymen, were rebuked in 

in tin' day's programme the enunciation a fiery manner by the only one from the 

of the mm possumus and the eonseien- same department who had not joined 

tioiis review of the right and wrong of them. This rebuke brought M. Thiers 

the treaty. His speech was, in some once more to the tribune to ask all to 

respects, the best, certainly the most ex- vote loyally, according to their eon- 

liaustive. which the Assembly heard, sciences, and not to trifle with false patri- 

and was listened to with unflagging in- otism. 

terest, from the line opening statement. At last the deputy, Keller, from Alsa- 

thai nothing was durable here below tia, had his final appeal, in which he 

save justice, to the close, when he begged called the proposed treaty an injustice, 

the Assembly to declare to Europe a falsehood, a dishonor. Then came 

that to take away the quality of French- the vote, and an hour of weary waiting 

men from Frenchmen exceeded her for the result; and when the members 

power. The audience was spellbound, had all passed over the platform on 

The right and wrong discussed thus at which stood the fatal urn. and the sec- 

this meeting would not have been retaries had slowly counted, the bell was 

listened to had a less skilful and pro- rung, and every one of the deputies and 

found thinker been in the tribune. nearly every person present stood up to 

There was something subtle in Louis hear the result declared. 

Blanc's characterization of Prussia as a The vote was for peace, 546 to 107. 

monarchy whose enlargement was due The treaty which took away Alsatia and 

solely to two crimes, — the theft of the greater part of Lorraine from France 

Silesia and the division of Poland, was ratified ; the ransom of five millions 

His summing up of the situation was as of francs was agreed to; and the broken 

true as epigrammatic. "It is not lie- armies of France might now dissolve and 

tween war to the death and peace that go back to the plough, the forge, and the 

you are required to choose : it is be- counting-room, 

tween war lor the maintenance of law M. Keller, who had been sitting bowed, 

and right, and peace for the violation of with his face hidden in his hands, while 

right ; between war for honor and peace his colleagues voted, now climbed up the 

at the price of honor." steps once more, and there was a dead 

General Changarnier's feeble voice silence as he stood confronting the As- 



EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 



3d') 



sembly. As he hade farewell to those 
in whom he had not found protection, 
and with his colleagues announced his 
withdrawal from the Assembly, his atti- 
tude was full of a noble dignity. '■ I 
■call," he said, " to take up the sword, 
every man who desires to have this de- 
testable treaty burned and trampled upon 
as soon as it is possible." 

Then the uniformed usher opened the 
door of our box, and we regained the 
open air. It was bright sunlight when 
we entered, darkness of night when we 
came out; and the darkness had fallen 
upon the hearts of the people. 

Next day we heard that the good 
Mayor of Strasbourg was dead. The sil- 
ver cord was loosed by the cruel shock of 
the news of the vote for peace. Hun- 



dreds of deputies and all the foreigners 
visiting Bordeaux went in respectful 
procession to the railway station when 
the Mayor's little funeral started for 
Strasbourg, and a few days afterwards 
the populace of the conquered city 
poured forth by thousands to the ceme- 
tery where the Mayor, who was univer- 
sally beloved, was buried. 1'atriotio 
speeches were made at the open grave, 
although a display of French sentiment 
in Strasbourg was dangerous in those 
days; and it is said that when the pro- 
cession, returning to the gates of the 
town, was halted, according to custom, 
by the sentinel, who said, "Who goes 
there?" the whole crowd in concert, and 
as if moved by one unanimous impulse, 
answered, "France ! " 



39(5 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER F( >R TY-TWO. 

Garibaldi and His Role.— New Italy. — The Upgrowth of Her Nationality. — Causes that Hindered It 
and Conduced I" It. — The Influence of Napoleon Third. — His Fatal Mistake in Counselling the 
Alliance of Prussia and Italy. — Downfall of the Old French Monarchical Policy. —The Hesitation 
of Frai — Occupation of Rome by the Italian Government. — The Pontifical Zouaves. 

GARIBALDI was one of the lions at an eagle, but did not consorl with vul- 
Bordeaux so long as he chose to tuns: a hero of insurrections, who had 
remain in the extemporized capital, and never forgotten that he was a gentleman. 
tn show himself in the street, or in the The presence of Garibaldi at Bor- 
lobbies of the Assembly, from which lie deaux brought forcibly to mind the great 
hail resigned with so much dignity. His changes which had been going on in the 
serene and heroic countenance, his frank Italian peninsula since the influence of 
gaze, his dignified carriage, and his slow the second French Empire had begun to 
and imposing gestures were all carefully weaken and totter towards its fall. In 
noted and chronicled. 1 1 is sayings were these events < Jaribaldi had played a shin- 
reported with utmost fidelity, and where- ing part. His career had often been 
ever he went he was followed by attentive checked by his fortune: the French Em- 
stenographers. |iire. which he had so detested, had 
The Radicals, and. indeed, most of the placed its bayonets at the disposition of 
advanced Republicans, did not hesitate to his adversaries; but he lived to see 

call Iiiiu the only successful general on •• Italy free from the Alps to the sea." 

the French side in the recent campaign. and to witness the complete discomfiture 

When he left the Assembly, after hav- of the man who in his early ami ardent 

ing given in his resignation, he made a. youth had professed a warm enthusiasm 

little address on the steps of the theatre, for the cause of Italian nationality, and 

in which he said that he had always who in his mature middle life had found 

known how to distinguish monarchical the support of his nobler ideals ineom- 

France. the France of the clergy, from patible with the success of his Imperial 

Republican France. The first two. to his fortunes. 

thinking, merited only execration, but Re- The volcanic forces which had been 

publican France was worthy of all love and so mysteriously at work in Europe for 

devotion. The Radicals were so pleased many years had. as it were, shaken and 

with Garibaldi that when the Commune fused, together into one composite and 

was installed at the Hotel de Ville, in the homogeneous mass the lone separated 

following month, an appointment iu what States of Italy. The land of volcanoes 

it was pleased to call its army was given and earthquakes had been convulsed 

him; but the grand old patriot did not politically, and to its lasting profit. The 

soil his skirts with contact with those great movement in favor of Italian unity 

noisy swashbucklers who steeped their was no more to he checked by the hand 

brains in wine, and damped their swords of the fallen French Emperor, or to be 

in the blood of their brethren. He was hindered by a show of French bayonets 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



31)7 



in Rome than the Lightning in the heavens 
or the sweep of the winds. The suc- 
cession of wars from 1804 to 1870, by 
which Prussia asserted her supremacy on 
the Continent, culminating in the tre- 
mendous struggle and series of victories 
which we have just outlined, had defi- 
nitely closed the era of the old monarch- 
ical policy in France, a policy which con- 
sisted in pushing the French frontier 
as far as possible away from Paris and 
in preventing the cooperation of small 
states which were neighbors to France. 

Although it is perhaps wise to believe 
in the mysterious dispensation which 
brings about the unity of peoples, and 
creates, despite the harshness of fate 
and of circumstance, new and powerful 
nations, it is still an open question 
whether Italy and Germany would have 
been unified within their respective 
bounds for a generation to come had it 
not been for the weakness of the late 
policy of Napoleon III. Among the 
most sincere friends of the late Emperor 
there are many critics who maintain that, 
when the French Emperor advised Italy 
to make its alliance with Prussia in 1866, 
he opened the door to all the disasters 
which finally fell upon his government. 
This treaty, signed in April of 1866, bore 
within its breast the germ of Italian 
unity, the Germau empire, the suppres- 
sion of the Temporal Power, the fall of 
the Imperial dynasty, the dismember- 
ment of France, and the Communal in- 
surrection. This is a French view, 
which is perhaps pessimistic ; yet we 
have on record the singular saying of 
Bismarck, when he came back from 
Biarritz, where the arrangements for the 
treaty had been made, " If Italy had 
not existed we should have had to invent 
her!" 

Napoleon's :isseiil to tin-, treaty was 
singular when contrasted with his vacil- 



lating attitude with regard to Rome : 
but in those days of 1866 he had begun 
the policy which conducted him to his 
ruin. He counted without his host 
when he founded all his hope upon the 
issue of a conflict between Austria and 
Prussia, a conflict which he hoped to pro- 
voke by abetting the alliance between 
Prussiaand Italy. It is notstrange that 
the French monarchists call the man who 
was their imperial master for half a gen- 
eration a " fatal man," for he rendered 
the future practice of their time-conse- 
crated policy utterly impossible. M. 
Thiers, the old and wily monarchist, had 
sounded his note of alarm in the great 
debate on the Roman question in the ( 'orps 
Ligislatif in December of 1867, when he 
cried out: " No sovereign should volun- 
tarily create on his own frontier a State 
of twenty-live millions of inhabitants. 
Italy, in becoming a great monarchy, 
at the same time becomes a disturbing 
agent and an instrument of revolution. 
The Germanic federation, which for 
twenty years was the main authority 
for maintaining the peace of the world, 
has disappeared, and lias been replaced 
by a military monarchy, which disposes 
of fi.uty millions of men: and you are 
placed between two unities, one which 
you made and the other which you per- 
mitted." 

This wail of M. Thiers for the lost 
balance of power was hailed with genuine 
delight by the aspiring spirits in Italy 
and Germany, who were panting for the 
consummation of national unity. 

Had Napoleon III. kept his plighted 
word to the French Republic before 1852, 
perhaps the dream of Italy might have 
been sooner realized, and there might 
have been some hope of a Latin feder- 
ation, — hope which may now be set aside 
:is vain. lint Napoleon as Emperor 
really set back the progress of Italy 



398 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



towards full national stature. All that 
he had dune for the country in 1859 was 
as naught in the eyes of the Italians so 
long as his bayonets glittered in the 
streets of Home. When Rouher in his 
famous speech said that Italy would 
never enter Rome, the revolutionists 
beyond the Alps trembled with wrath, 
and General I)e Failly's cool remark that 
the u chassepdts had done marvels" at 
Montana awoke resentment in the Ital- 
ian mind which the generous French 
nation, committed to the policy of a 
government which it detested, was very 
far from suspect ing. 

What wonderful changes had come to 
Italy between L867 and the close of that 
fateful year of bs7i>! On that same 
September day when the Crown Prince 
of Prussia entered Versailles with his 
victorious army, the troops of King Vic- 
tor Emmanuel of Italy entered Rome 
after a brief resistance from the Pope's 
soldiers. M. Rouher's scornful prophecy 
had proved false. Italy, on that day 
which brought disaster to her ancient 
ally, stood up proud and strong in the 

face of the world, in full possession of 
the heritage of which she had been de- 
prived for more than three hundred and 
fifty years. What Italian unity meant 
to Italians it is almost impossible for 
Americans to understand. This unity had 
been looked forward to for so long, and 
had been so persistently denied them, 
that it seemed almost foolish to hope on. 
In 1848, the great period of universal 
revolution in Europe, the Italians almost 
clutched the glittering prize ; then it was 
swept out of their reach once more, and 
only such stern priests of liberty as 
Mazzini could keep the lamp of their 
faith burning brightly in the weary 
years. All the way down through the 
generations from Julius IT., who preached 
the crusade against the barbarians and 



strangers in the " lovely land of Italy,'" 
the country was hopelessly divided. 
" The Italians." says a despairing writer 
on Italy, in 1848, "took part, some 
with France, some with Spain, until at 
last all Italy laid her weapons at the 
feet of the fortunate Austrian in 1530. 
All the interval between Julius II. and 
Pius VI., between Charles V. and Na- 
poleon, was, for that country, a long 
agony. Italy was dying, — dying by 
inches, — dying unconsciously. The 
chill of death was at the heart; but, by 
unnatural anomaly from the wonted 
course of nature, symptoms of vitality 
were still discernible at the extremities. 

Milan and Naples were lost ; but Venice 
and Genoa still stood calm amongst 
ruins of mediaeval fortune; and Home, 
papal Rome, yet preserved some of its 
prestige, — the vain shadow of spiritual 
sovereignty. Moreover — and that was 
yetathird style of supremacy — men still 
looked up to Italian genius; lor politi- 
cal annihilation had not yet brought with 
it mental prostration and degeneracy. 

•• Tlnse circumstances contributed to 
keep up the sad illusion of an Italian 
existence. The foreign ruler was per- 
manently established in Lombardy, the 
centre of Italian wealth in modern times. 
He lorded it over both Sicilies, and from 
these, his head-ijuai ters. hisnod was law 
at Florence and Rome. He kept the 
remaining States in continual alarm by 
open threats, by perfidious intrigues; 
and these had lio defense against him, 
besides the most selfish, subservient, 

pusillanimous policy. 

"All this for nearly three centuries. 
At the breaking out of the French Revo- 
lution, ill 1789, the death-blow was 
scarcely needed. Napoleon, in 17H7, 
or his conquerors, in 1814, blotted out 
Venice and Genoa, the last cities of 
genuine Italian growth; 1820 and 1831, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



399 



stripped Naples, Piedmont, and Rome 
— those foreign structures of the Holy 
Alliance, on Italian ground — of their 
tinsel of nominal self-existence, by 
throwing them helplessly, for very life, 
on Austrian protection. From (he Alps 
to the sea the Austrian made himself at 
home. Where he was not to-day he 
might be expected to-morrow. All the 
princes still bearing the name of inde- 
pendent were ou\y the first of his vassals. 
Every one of the Italian States presented 
a melancholy spectacle of a house 
divided against itself, and it was espe- 
cially this deep-rooted animosity between 
government and people that made Italy 
Austrian throughout. It was a state of 
things to make many a patriot wish for 
an actual annexation of this mere Aus- 
trian dependency to the Austrian mon- 
archy. The Roman, Neapolitan, and 
Sardinian governments were, in fact, 
Austrian with a vengeance." Each suc- 
cessive revolution in Italy, from 1820 to 
1848, whether a demand for a French 
charter or a Spanish constitution, attack 
upon priestly government or rash insur- 
rection by hot-headed patriots, without 
any definite aim except, hatred of the 
Austrian, was crushed with promptness 
and decision. But this very vigor of the 
Austrian had for its result the concen- 
tration of all Italian energies into the 
national parties. 

Mazzini, early in 1848. declared that 
the only question henceforth in Italy was 
the national one. and that all questions 
as to the forms of internal policy must 
be put off until after the close of the war 
of independence. 

From 1840 to 1850 Austria was then 
all-powerful in the Italian peninsula. 
At Modena, at Florence, at Parma, at 
Naples, and at Rome, the Italians were 
crushed beneath the Austrian taxes 
and the military requisitions. The Lom- 



bard-Venetian kingdom had become an 
Austrian province. So great were the 
excesses of the Austrians in the penin- 
sula that Count C'avour, one of the 
builders and founders of Italian unity, 
boldly denounced them ; and it was not 
long before Piedmont and its sovereign, 
whose minister C'avour was, saw the 
Austrian armies arrayed against it. 
Then, in a generous moment, Napoleon 
III. espoused the cause of Piedmont, 
and in swift succession came the battles 
of Montebello, Palestro, Magenta, and 
Marignan. Lombardy was swept clear 
of the Austrians by the victorious French 
and Italians, and the sanguinary en- 
counter of Solferino brought the cam- 
paign to an end. 

As the price of the aid which Napoleon 
gave the Italians in the conflict with the 
Austrians, the provinces of Nice and 
Savoy were transferred to France ; and 
this had been agreed upon by a secret 
arrangement, which was not made pub- 
lic until after the peace. When the 
populations who had been thus bodily 
removed from one government to another 
were called upon to express their ideas 
on the change, the majority of the votes 
were favorable to French annexation, 
andNicehas become, in these latter days, 
such a jewel in the Mediterranean garden 
of cities, such a popular midwinter 
capital of fashionable pomp and pleasure, 
that the Italians look longingly towards 
it. and weep that they cannot have it 
back again. 

Out of this war came the movement 
which resulted in the foundation of the 
constitutional monarchy of Victor Em- 
manuel. Florence. Parma. Modena, and 
Bologna declared the downfall of their 
old governments, and voluntarily an- 
nexed themselves to the kingdom of 
Sardinia. This was the first step toward 
the welding together of the nation. 



100 El ROPE 1\ STORM AXD CALM. 

In Sicily there wore insurrections, deserting the Pope. As for Tins IX.. 
Garibaldi, at the head of his famous he always opposed his non possumus 
•• Thousand. 7 ' entered Palermo. Sicily with :i sweet and serene firmness to 
was pacified, and Garibaldi came back every expedient which the Emperor of 
o Viples in triumph. The events from the French suggested. 
that time to the present are too well The Italian government first mani- 
known to need more than hast\ recapitu- fested its direct independence of Fiance 
lation here Victor Emmanuel entered when Napoleon 111. endeavored to 
Naples as it-- sovereign in ISGO. The tempt it to the rupture of its alliance 
populations of Southern Italy finally with Prussia by offering to secure 
acknowledged his power. The Italian Venetia for King Victor Emmanuel. 
Parliament met in Turin in 1861, ami in This, thought Napoleon, was a prize 
March of that year the kingdom of Italy which would thoroughly dazzle the new 
was proclaimed. Then Garibaldi mani- King. The Queen of tin- Adriatic had 
fested a Hen impatience to march upon long been in mourning in presence of 
Pome; luit he could not persuade the the harsh invader. It would be a grace- 
King to adopt his way of thinking, SO ful act. and would look well in history, 
lie swept down into Sicily, where he to interfere ("v her restoration to her 
raised a valiant little army, and was kindred. But the Italian court explained 
well on his way to Rome to fight the that it was too late to break friendship 
final battle, which would have completed with Prussia. The Italians fully appre- 
Italian unity, when the King's troops dated the importance of their new con- 
met him at Aspromonte, and held him nection. and realized that they could 
hack. free Venice without Napoleon's aid. 
All this time France was the chief The French Emperor was taken between 
obstacle t<> the conquest >>( Rome. In tin* forward movements in Italy and 
1864 the French Empire concluded with Germany like one of those prisoners of 
Italy a treaty, by which Rome and its the Middle Ages, immured in a cell with 
neighborhood were to he respected by moving walls, which came slowly together 
the Italians, even after the French to crush him. 

troops, which had long been the main Italy had serious misfortune by land 

support >'i the papacy, were withdrawn and by sea when she entered the great 

from Rome. The Roman question ever and swifl campaign of is,;,; side by side 

since the expedition of 1859 hail been with Prussia. She came to grief by 

source of grave embarrassment to land at Custozza, and In sea at Lissa ; 

Napoleon 111. At one time he reconi- hut Austria was crushed by the northern 

mended the Pope to abandon a part of German, and Victor Emmanuel came 

his temporal empire to save the rest, in triumph into the historic square of 

He even counselled him to give up every- St. Mark to welcome tin' bride of the 

thitm' except Koine: at another. In- si i hack into the family from which she 

caressed the project of an Italian federa- had been so long parted. Old Prince 

lion which should he presided over by Von Metternich. who was a 

the Pope. Doubtless many of thesi ■ when he heard that Napoli 

things weii suggested by the influeuce III. was coquetting with Cavour, had 

of the Empress, who was an inflexible pred at the revolutionary empire 

opponent of au\ movement towards •' would perish on the Italiau hreaki 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



401 



The old diplomat was well-nigh omnis- 
cient in all tilings temporal, and he 
doubtless foresaw the trend of events 
taking Italy into the arms of Prussia. 

The French Empire had withdrawn 
its troops from Rome in 18G4, after the 
famous September convention ; but, in 
1KG7, Garibaldi, who was a keen ob- 
server of the direction of the wind in 
European politics, began anew a inarch 
upon Koine with his volunteers. He 
saw that the French Empire, up to that 
time the pivot upon which the politics of 
the Continent revolved, was beginning to 
fail ; so he boldly stepped across the 
frontiers, which Italy, by the conven- 
tion, had agreed to keep sacred from 
intrusion. The Pope was threatened in 
his St. Peter's chair. Napoleon was 
forced to stop in his long list of enter- 
tainments to sovereigns during the 
brilliant festival of the Exhibition, and 
to send out an iron-clad squadron, laden 
with French troops, to C'ivita Vecchia. 
Europe was struck with the celerity with 
which this French expedition was or- 
ganized. Prussia was a little dazed by 
it, and for a short time wondered if it 
had been mistaken in its estimate of the 
French military disorganization. The 
prestige of France, which had steadily 
lowered after Sadowa, rose up again. 
But Mentana was a mistake ; and where- 
as at the moment of the expedition the 
French Imperialists fancied that they 
had recovered their hold upon Italy, they 
had done the one thing which had finally 
ruined their influence. 

Italy made one last effort to secure the 
aid of France in its advance upon Koine. 
when it sent General Menabrea to Vichy 
in 18(39, to say to Napoleon III. that if 
he would agree to the embodiment of all 
the Papal states, with the exception of 
Rome and its immediate environs, in the 
kingdom of Italy, that kingdom was 



ready to make with France an offensive 
and defensive alliance. How different 
might have been the results of the war 
which France was fatally destined to 
have with Prussia, if this Italian offer 
had been accepted ! 

General Menabrea made spiteful re- 
marks afterwards about Napoleon's 
refusal, which he doubtless attributed to 
family influences. " It is very unlucky," 
he said to a French diplomat in Florence 
in 1871, " that we did not conclude that 
alliance, because, the first duty of two 
allies being the reciprocal control of 
their military effectives and resources, 
we should have been able to show the 
Emperor that he was not in a condition 
to make war." 

To the French troops in Rome suc- 
ceeded a kind of international guard, 
Composed of young gentlemen from the 
aristocratic families of various European 
countries, and of adventurers of more 
or less renown. The life which this 
body of defenders of tin' faith led dining 
the three years before the entry of tin' 
King of Italy into Koine was hardly an 
agreeable one. There is a good story 
which illustrates one of the odd phases 
of life in this corps. Early in 1868 a 
young man of noble family, who was 
burning to distinguish himself in military 
deeds, went to Rome, and laid his sword 
at the feet of the Pope, or, in other 
words, enlisted in the Pontifical Zouaves. 
On the day after his enlistment, he re- 
ported to his superior officer at a dirty 
barracks in an obscure quarter of the 
Eternal City, and inquired what he could 
do to fill up his leisure. 

" Go into the court-yard," said the 
officer, •• and peel potatoes." 

The young man of noble family made 
a respectful salute, but said that he did 
not understand. Whereupon he received 
a bluff military rebuke, and was told 



402 EUROPE m STORM AND CALM. 

that he should go into the court-yard The humiliation of this gentleman, 

and peel potatoes, and if he could not who had had dreams of military glory, 

understand an order when it was given, and found that he had nothing but menial 

he could take three days in the guard- services to perform in a dull garrison, 

house, which were forthwith bestowed battles description, 
upon him. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



403 



CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. 



The Great Pier Between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. — Brindisi and Naples. — The Revival of 
Commerce. — Industrial Exhibitions. — Universal Progress. — The Struggle Between Church and 
State. — Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel. — The High Priest of European Conservatism. — The " Ifon 
Possumus " of the Vatican. — Familiar Traits of Victor Emmanuel. 



" TTALY," once said a witty Italian 
-L frieud of mine, '■ is a great pier 
extended from the south of Europe into 
the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, 
and Brindisi and Naples are its pier 
heads." 

This word " pier," in connection with 
the " lovely land of Italy," seemed, at 
first, to have a jarring sound, for it sug- 
gested things commercial, which had not 
been in recent times habitually associated 
with the peninsula ; but events have 
proved that no expression could have 
been more apt to describe new Italy of 
the period of unification. 

In fact, from Brindisi and from Naples 
flow to the east great currents of com- 
merce which are constantly increasing in 
volume. England sends her generals, 
her treasures, and her mails to the 
Indies by the Italian route ; and the port 
of Naples is never without half a dozen 
steamers from the Orient, arriving or 
departing from it, as the most convenient 
point at which to touch in Southern 
Europe, before making the long sweep 
eastward. The piercing of the Alps by 
numerous tunnels, by the mighty one of 
Mont Cenis, which was completed in 1871 ; 
and in these latter years by that of the St. 
Gothard, lias transformed the railway 
system of Italy as by magic, and has 
opened new channels for trade, making 
of ancient and illustrious Genoa the dan- 
gerous rival of Marseilles ; giving to 
Venice an impulse which uo longer 



seemed possible for her, and binding, by 
bands of iron and unity of mercantile in- 
terests, Germany and Italy together as 
no political alliance could possibly bind 
them. 

The cities, so numerous in Italy, 
where the long division into petty states 
had fostered the up-building ami the 
rivalry of capitals, have all had a touch 
of the new inspiration. Turin and 
Florence have ceased to mourn over the 
departure of the court to Rome. Turin 
has sprung into first-rate business im- 
portance. Florence, for a long time 
weighed down by municipal misfortunes, 
is beginning to recover its splendor of 
old time. Milan, and Verona, and 
Venice, and Genoa no longer merit the 
title of cities of the past. They are in 
immediate and constant relations with 
the living and enthusiastic present. But 
exacting critics say that this northern 
section is not real Italy ; that it is so 
closely allied with German lands ou the 
one hand, and with France on the other, 
that its characteristics are composite, 
and that the enterprise, the quick energy 
of the northern races, may be well mani- 
fest there, while it will be entirely lack- 
ing in the sleepy and sensuous south. 

This is an unjust criticism, and one 
which the enterprise of Naples, the won- 
derful upbuilding of Rome, the activity 
manifest even in Sicily — much agitated 
by politics and volcanoes, — amply dis- 
prove. At the present writing, Naples 



404 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



is about to In- girdled with a metropoli- 
tan railway, — an institution which Paris 
dors not yet possess ; and in most of the 
southern Italian cities, in public build- 
ings, in municipal institutions of every 
kind, the march of progress has been 
as rapid as in any other country in 
Europe. The rise in the value of Italian 
railway stocks was .so swift as to cause a 
great and very agreeable surprise to 
thousands of investors, who could not 
believe it possible that the once divided 
and helpless Italian land had produced 
such results. The railways of the penin- 
sula are shortly to be divided into two 
great systems, the Adriatic and the 
Mediterranean ; and these, with their 
tributary lines running in all directions, 
will soon develop the rich agricultural 
fields, which have long been destitute of 
facilities for communication. In Italy, 
as in mauv of the newer States of the 
American Union, the narrow-gauge rail- 
way is a popular institution ; and there 
is an Italian company specially organ- 
ized for creating these beneficent and 
inexpensive arteries of commerce wher- 
ever they are needed. 

The commercial movement, up to the 
time of the sudden development of the 
international railway system, had been 
entirely concentrated 11)1011 the coast, 
and especially upon the western side, 
where were the ports of Genoa, Leghorn, 
Naples, and the great Sicilian cities of 
Palermo, Messina, Catania, and Syra- 
cuse. No sooner were the Alps and the 
Apennines tunnelled than the Italian 
trade with the outer world doubled in 
volume, and between 1SG1 and 1872 
the commerce of Italy with Austria-Hun- 
gary rose from sixty-seven millions of 
francs to four hundred and forty-seven 
millions. 

The civil engineer is a personage much 
respected in Italy, aud with reason, for 



he was one of the great artificers of the 
national unity. It is due to his immense 
persistence and unflagging industry that 
the Apennines, which once divided Italy 
into numerous distinct basins which 
seemed to be shut out from communica- 
tion with each other by natural barriers, 
are to-day pierced by five railway lines 
between Naples and Foggia, Pome and 
Ancona, Florence and Bologna, Genoa 
and Milan, Savona anil Turin. New 
lines are constantly created, and the 
Piedmontese, the Lombards, the Romans, 
the Neapolitans, the Sicilians, who once 
lived as much apart as if they had been 
separated by great oceans, now inter- 
mingle, exchange sentiments and im- 
pressions ; and the work of welding the 
nation together goes bravely on. Indus- 
trial exhibitions of great importance and 
extent have, within the last few years, 
given a powerful aid to the completion 
of Italian unity. The exhibitions at 
Milan and Turin attracted hundreds of 
thousands of visitors from the southern 
portion of the peninsula; have prompted 
the creation of new industries, and opened 
new channels ; and they did away with 
the stupid provincialism for which the 
Italians had long been justly reproached, 
and put money into circulation where it 
had hitherto been almost unknown. 

In 18G7 beggars were so abundant in 
Italy that one could not take a stroll in 
the street or country without being 
besieged by them. In 1877 beggars 
had become a less frequent specta- 
cle, both at the great highways of 
travel and in the interior districts. 
Emigration, the new system of railway 
service, the drafting away of the strong 
and capable from districts where they 
had been too numerous into others 
where they could be utilized in manu- 
facturing aud agriculture, the upbuild- 
ing of a splendid new navy, — all these 



EUROPE /A" STORM AND CALM. 



405 



things had awakened the once depend- 
ent and shiftless populations to a sense 
of dignity. 

The Italian suddenly appeared in the 
great commercial towns of France and 
Spain, in Algeria, and in the Levant. 
When he found the taxation in his home 
district too heavy to bear he closed his 
cottage door, and, taking his wife and 
children by the hand, departed for the 
nearest seaport, and set his foot upon 
the ships which took him to South 
America or to other lands beyond the 
sea. But lie always took away with him 
the hope that he might return to share 
the new future, which now looked so 
bright and promising. 

Literature, painting, sculpture revived ; 
and. although those liberal arts in which 
Italy had once led the world were ap- 
proached with that timidity which is 
natural in the race that has always had 
the best models of the greatest masters 
before its eyes, the achievements were at 
once honorable and many. Visitors to 
the Milan Exhibition, in 1881, were con- 
stantly expressing their astonishment, as 
they passed from aisle to aisle of the 
great palace in which were grouped the 
products of Italian industry and art. It 
was evident that the country had re- 
sumed its old position in the domain of 
industrial art ; that the glass-makers of 
to-day in Venice were no whit inferior to 
their splendid predecessors of the middle 
ages, and that there were still to be found 
men who knew the lustre of majolicas, 
and who understood the subtlety of 
Roman form in jewelry, in mosaics, and 
in the inlaying of delicate furniture. In 
the galleries devoted to painting, the 
critics from Paris, from Loudon, and 
Vienna expressed their holy honor at 
the deep blue of the skies, the purple 
waters, and the general impression of 
dazzling sunshine, opalescent wave, and 



tropical moonlights ; but these critics 
could not deny that the new Italian 
painters painted from nature, and that 
in their devotion to subjects taken from 
their own land and beneath their own 
sky there was a national feeling as keen 
and as pronounced as that which had 
been manifest in politics in the peninsula 
from 18GG to the occupation of Rome. 
Lut this very nationalization of painting 
seemed to shut out the Italian painters 
of average merit from the great exhibi- 
tions in northern Europe, to which they 
had sometimes sent specimens of their 
work. They had emancipated them- 
selves from the school of Fontainebleau 
and Barbizon, and, instead of painting 
the fleecy skies, the grays and blues of 
northern French schools, the deep and 
soft greens, and the dells and lakes 
and glades enshrouded in the luminous 
haze of Corot, Diaz, and Rousseau, had 
put upon canvas the glories of Sorrento 
and of Naples Bay, the pine woods of 
Ravenna and the sandy slopes by the 
Adriatic, or the gorgeous colors on the 
Venetian horizon, where fantastic archi- 
tecture seems to spring by magic from 
sea and sky inextricably blended. In 
literature there had not been so great a 
decay as in the other arts ; but the ful- 
filment of the national aspirations un- 
doubtedly gave it a firmer purpose and a 
stronger vitality. 

(tut of the twenty-eight millions of 
native Italians the great majority are de- 
voted to agriculture. The culture of the 
silk-worm, of rice, of the vine, of oil, of 
figs, raisins, almonds, chestnuts, oranges, 
lemons, can be made profitable with 
smaller expense than in any other 
European country. The wine and silk 
industries have within the last frw years 
assumed great importance. Italy ex- 
ports to France millions upon millions of 
gallons of wines, inferior in point of 



40(5 



EUROPE IK STORM AND CALM. 



fabrication to those of ber neighbor State, 
but sound and wholesome, and often 
used in the making of those imitations 
of famous brands which the French 
send to what they call " eccentric" 
countries. 

Only thirty-six per cent, of the total 
area of Italy is yet under cultivation; 
yet Italy manages to produce in a pros- 
perous year six hundred million gallons of 
wine, more olives than any other country 
in Europe, and one hundred and forty 
million bushels of wheat ; to send Great 
Britain oil and hemp ami fruit, sulphur, 
chemical products, wine, flax, and iron 
ore. ami to take in return vast quantities 
of cotton, iron, coal, and woollens ; to 
employ more than one hundred and 
twenty thousand women and two-thirds as 
many children in her silk factories ; and 
from her rich pasturages to export scores 
of thousands of cattle, .sheep, and swine. 
In spite of the chronic evils of almost 
universal ignorance among the peasant 
classes, and high taxation, the country 
has seen its credit, rise slowly and steadily 
until its paper money is to-day as good 
as gold. In each of the great general 
divisions of the country, Piedmont, 
Liguria, Lombardy, Venice, Emilia, Tus- 
cany. Marcia, Umbria, and Rome, 
Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, order is 
now uniformly enforced, brigandage al- 
most entirely done away with, a military 
service sternly insisted upon, and one 
kind of money is current through all 
these States, which were once so proud 
of their own petty institutions, coinage 
and traditions. 

As to the reform of ignorance, Italy 
is doing its 1 lest. Elementary instruction 
is obligatory and gratuitous by law ; but 
the resources of the country are not suffi- 
cient, to maintain schools in all the 
country districts, nor can they stand the 
strain for many years to come. It is 



estimated that nearly every member of 
the rural population of the kingdom has 
to find 10 or 20 lire, something like $i, 
per year to support the government 
revenue 

Every year from sixty to seventy-five 
thousand young men are swept away into 
the standing army, to serve for three 
years in the infantry and four years in the 
cavalry ; and a second draft of sixty 
thousand is taken from the farms and 
workshops lo serve six months under 
the Hag. both afterwards passing into the 
reserve and the mobile militia. Every 
valid Italian man remains in the Italian 
a liny, in the active or in the reserve, 
until he is thirty-nine years old. Italy, 
from her twelve military " regions," as 
site calls them, can now muster some- 
thing like a million of soldiers, of which 
half a million are in the infantry, twenty- 
two regiments in the cavalry, and nearly 
one hundred and fifty thousand men in 
the artillery service. The mobile and 
the territorial militia is estimated at nine 
hundred and thirty thousand strong, 
which, added to the active, would give 
nearly two millions; but the putting on 
foot for immediate service of half this 
number would be a gigantic effort for the 
country. 

Italy is justly proud of her new navy, 
which is a kind of mystification for the 
rest of Europe. The English, the French, 
and the Germans all fail to understand 
why the new kingdom must have nine- 
teen huge iron-clads, some of them, like 
the ■■Duilio" anil the "Dandolo," carrying 
four one-hundred-ton, muzzle-loading 
Armstrong guns, and wearing armor 
nearly two feet thick at the water-line, 
and eighteen inches thick on the turrets, 
with their gigantic guns mounted, and 
worked by hydraulic mechanism. The 
country has spent four millions of dollars 
each for those two vast vessels, the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



407 



"Italia" and the '• Lepanto," each four 
hundred feet long, seventy-two feet 
broad, and with an extreme draught of 
water exceeding thirty feet. 

These are the largest warships ever 
yet built; and their engines are twice 
as powerful as the engines of any other 
armored ship ever constructed. The 
rdle which such formidable monsters 
will play in some future encounter 
in the Adriatic or the Mediterranean 
cannot be prophesied. At present one 
can only suppose that Italy is building 
these prodigious ships as floating for- 
tresses, evidences of her new strength 
and greatness, and her determination to 
defend herself, if necessary. The " Italia" 
and the "Lepauto" have, like the ships 
before mentioned, each fourone-hundred- 
ton breech-loading guns, carried in a bar- 
bet, protected by nineteen inches of steel- 
faced armor ; and, in addition to these, 
eighteen four-ton six-inch breech-load- 
ingguns mounted on the broadsides. The 
old arsenal of Venice, from which went 
out the galleys of " Daudolo," the beaked 
vessels whose crews made Venice the 
mistress of the seas, has recovered its 
activity, and the Venetians toil night and 
day on the engines for the defense of the 
great country in which their diverse in- 
dividualities have so lately been merged. 

Thus, after the completion of her nu- 
merous projects for improving, building 
and rebuilding, fortifying, defending, 
and expanding, Italy has been so busy 
at home that she has played but small 
part in the international movements since 
the creation of her unity. Within her 
own boundaries she had had plenty to 
occupy her attention. 

With the entry into Eome, in July of 
1871, of Victor Emmanuel, and the es- 
tablishment of the capital of the new 
kingdom in the Eternal City, began a 
formidable duel between Church ami 



State, which was continued without in- 
termission until the death of the great 
representatives of each power. Pius IX., 
whom the Catholic world was pleased 
to consider as the prisoner of the ex- 
communicated King of Italy, and Victor 
Emmanuel finished their lives at the 
beginning of 1878 ; the King, who had 
set his hand to the decree regulating the 
funeral ceremonies of the Pontiff, being 
destined to pass away first. From 1870 
to 1878 the Bishop of Eome. the Vicar 
of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, 
Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff 
of the Universal Church, had acted as the 
high-priest of European conservatism, 
and had set his face sternly against all 
the ardent and generous attempts of the 
House of Savoy to reconcile him to the 
upspringing of the new nationality and 
the emancipation from the dogmas of the 
church. 

Pius IX. was one of the most remark- 
able men who ever occupied the papal 
throne, and he sat longer upon that 
throne than any of his predecessors. 
He had the face of a saint, and the stern- 
ness and vigor of a soldier. He had, 
indeed, been a soldier in his youth, but 
a curious nervous infirmity rendered it 
unlikely that he could succeed in a mili- 
tary career. So he decided to take holy 
orders. He was the son of a certain 
Count Jerome Mastai-Ferretti, a de- 
scendant of an old family, and a very- 
good one. At eighteen young Mastai 
was a Liberal, an enthusiast, and a Free- 
mason, which was thought a dreadful 
thing in Catholic Europe in those days. 
After the youth had determined upon en- 
tering the priesthood he studied theology 
carefully at Rome, and was ordained a 
priest in 1819. In 1840 he had already 
reached the eardinalate, and six years 
later, when Gregory XVI. died, an old 
friend and fellow-pupil called the atten- 



408 



FJ'IiOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



tion of the College of Cardinals to Mas- 
tai's merits, and lie was made Pope in 
1S4G. He took the name of Pius IX., 
in memory of Pins VII., who was his 
relative. 

For a long time, and especially during 
the stormy days of 1848, the new Pope's 
position was but vaguely defined. At 
one time lie was acclaimed and welcomed 
by the Democrats of Italy as likely to 
be the leader of their cause and to bring 
liberty back into the land from which it 
had so long been an exile. But those 
who had been momentarily deceived by 
his professions of reform were griev- 
ously disappointed when they found that 
he eared little for practical liberty, ami 
that, although he was willing to be Pope, 
lie could not, as he quaintly said. " get 
himself damned to please the Liberals." 
Yet he had apparently gone so far 
towards Liberalism at one time that 
there was a conspiracy among the mem- 
bers of the Pontifical government to 
bring him back' to a correct attitude by 
the terrorizing measures which had so 
often, it was said, been practised against 
refractory Popes. 

In answer to the appeal of Milan and 
Venice the Romans begged the Pope to 
take part in the movement for indepen- 
dence, and to send an army corps against 
Austria. Pius IX. hesitated, but at last 
he sent seventeen thousand men to take 
part in the campaign, which pleased tin' 
Austrians SO little that they hanged a 
Roman soldier whom they had taken 
prisoner, and inscribed upon his gallows : 
"Thus do we treat the soldiers of Pius 
IX." 

In 1848 the Pope was a bolder politi- 
cian than any great secular sovereign in 
Europe. When he saw the Revolution 
fairly in progress, and observed that thi 
sweeping changes -which were made in 
France were likely to lie insisted on in 



Italy, he began the policy of reaction. 
His ministry was unpopular; his chief 
minister was assassinated ; the people 
were furious; and the Pope hail to fly 
across the frontier to Neapolitan terri- 
tory, where he installed the court and 
called the diplomatic corps around him. 
It was more than a year and a half before 
he was replaced upon the throne of Peter, 
and, surrounded by the French bayonets, 
without which his career would have been 
closed a generation before, he began the 
enunciation of that formidable series of 
doctrines which has resulted in a most 
complete change in the attitude of the 
Catholic Church to modern institutions. 

From the day of Garibaldi's successful 
expedition to Sicily down to the day of 
his death Pius IX. maintained the atti- 
tude of one persecuted, bowing to decrees 
with which he could not interfere, but 
which lie refused to admit as other than 
transitory and impious. lie was quick 
to see that in the march of events in half- 
a-dozen European countries there were 
incessant menaces to the temporal power 
of the Church ; and, while he opposed in 
graceful and dignified language the non 
possumus of the papacy, he now and 
then, in his more familiar conversations, 
inveighed with all the vigor of a politician 
against the enemies of the Church. 

When he heard that the Italian Parlia- 
ment had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel 
King of Italy, in 18(11, and had declared 
that Rome was the capital of the new 
kingdom, although the court still re- 
mained in Turin, Pius IX. declared that 
he could not, without gravely wounding 
his conscience, make any alliance with 
modern civilization. Shortly after that 
he, in one of his allocutions, condemned 
that same modern civilization, which 
'• does not even prevent heretics from 
taking public office, and which opens 
Catholic schools to their children." In 



EUROPE /.V STORM AXP CALM. 



409 




THE LAST BENEDICTION OF POPE PIUS IX. 



410 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



lsiil. he published :i syllabus, in which 
the Church fulminated against the whole 
Democratic theory, and opposed cate- 
gorically and with the most tremendous 
energy every doctrine of the French Rev- 
olution and of the little revolutions 
which had grown out of it, and almost 
every achievement of modern science 
which had led to Liberalism in thought 
and action. 

In 1867 he published an encyclical let- 
ter against the Italian government, and 
condemned all the laws voted by the 
national parliament for secularizing the 
estates of the Church. He declared 
against the increased facilities for the 
higher instruction of women in France, 
against the liberal laws which Austria 
was beginning to make in harmony with 
modern ideas. — laws recognizing the lib- 
erty of conscience and of the press, mixed 
marriages, primary instruction, etc. 
These, laws, he said, were abominable, 
contrary to doctrine, to the rights and to 
the constitution of the Church. In 1868 
lie scut the famous golden rose blessed 
by his own hand. ti> Queen Isabella of 
Spain, so soon destined to fly before her 
enraged people. When the Spanish Re- 
public came, he forbade the Spanish 
bishops to take scats in the Cortes or 
to take the oath of fidelity to the con- 
stitution of their country. In 1868 he 
published a bull, convoking the Ecumeni- 
cal C'ouncilat Rome to meet in December 
of the following year. In this council 
he for the second time undertook the 
profound modification of the creed of 
the Catholic Church. In 1*54 he had 
formally defined the dogma of the Im- 
maculate Conception ; and now he brought 
together the great dignitaries of the 
whole Catholic world, that they might 
i ■ 'in with him in asserting the infallibility 
of the Vicar of Christ upon earth. The 
dogma was thus expressed: "We teach 



and define that it is a dogma divinely 
revealed that the Roman Pontiff, when 
he speaks ex cathedra, defining a doc- 
trine regarding faith or morals to be 
held by the Universal Church, is. by the 
Divine assistance promised to him in 
blessed Peter, possessed of that infalli- 
bility with which the Divine Redeemer 
willed that his Church should be endowed 
in defining doctrine regarding faith or 
morals; and that therefore such defini- 
tions of the Roman Pontiff are of them- 
selves, and not through the consent of 
the Church, infallible." The imposing mi- 
nority which arose against this decision — 
minority composed of ( German and French 
ecclesiastics alike — had no effect upon 
Pius IX. As the wave of Democracy rose 
he stood more erect and sterner than ever 
upon the rock of Peter. His discourses 
were full of allusions to the wicked war 
made against the Church, to the perver- 
sion of law, to corrupt artifices for break- 
ing the boundsof salutary authority. He 
enjoyed to the full his triumph in the 
Vatican Council. He saw himself sol- 
emnly proclaimed as infallible, all his 
opponents except two at the final vote, 
which was in public session, abstaining, 
rather than to place themselves on record 
as opposed to the Successor of Peter. 

Thus at the very moment of the ele- 
vation of the Pope, who had ruled in 
Rome for a generation, to the highest 
honor possible to attain on earth, he saw 
his spiritual capital invaded by the 
Italian King, and the old papal resi- 
dence of the Quirinal occupied by the 
royal representative of a newly united 
people. 

When Victor Emmanuel came to the 
Quirinal he was the most popular figure 
in Italy. Pius IX. even had a secret 
liking for him ; and it is said that when 
the lie galantuomo lay dying in the 
palace which he had taken from the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



411 



Pope, and the Pope himself was con- 
fined to his bed, and knew that his last 
hour was not far off, his priestly heart 
yearned towards the excommunicated 
son of the Church. He called to him a 
run'' of the apostolic palace, and said, 
"Monsignore, take a carriage and go 
directly to the Quirinal ; there present 
yourself in my name, and beg to speak to 
the King. I give you full power to re- 
lieve him from all the condemnations." 

The prelate was so astonished that 
the Pope had to repeat his order before 
he would go to execute it. But he had 
no sooner arrived at the Quirinal than he 
was sent back. The ministers, the 
aides-de-camp, the physicians, all pre- 
vented him from arriving at the Kiug's 
bedside. It is said that the old Pope 
turned uneasily on his couch, and said, 
" Ah, the unhappy creatures! they wish 
to arrest the pardon of God ; and this 
poor culpable King is no more free in 
his death-bed than he was on the throne. 
If ever 1 regretted not being able to get 
about the streets of my city of Rome it 
is now. I wish I had the force to get 
up. I would go to the Quirinal myself, 
and 1 would see whether I should not be 
let in ! " 

But this movement of charity, as the 
Catholic world thought it, indicated no 
weakening of papal sentiment towards 
the House of Savoy. Pius IX. liked to 
depict Victor Emmanuel II. as a good 
Catholic, who was compelled by a host 
of wicked people surrounding him to do 
disagreeable things to the Church. He 
was fond of speaking of the sovereign 
as a gay and sensual gentleman, who 
was in his secret heart a bit of a bigot, 
and who invoked at least three times a 
day St. Andrew of Aveline. It was 
said that the monarch signed the decrees 
expelling the Jesuits, suppressing the 
religious orders, confiscating the eccle- 



siastical estates, obliging the priesthood 
to military service ; but immediately 
wrote to the Pope letters of supplica- 
tion, saying that he was constrained, and 
promised to do all lie could to attenuate 
the effects of these measures. Pius IX. 




VICTOR EMMANUEL AND PRINCE HUMBERT 
AT THE QUIRINAL. 

sometimes called the King the " great 
breast-beater," because he liked to 
picture him in the attitude of the peni- 
tent who strikes upon his bosom, anil 
says " Mea culpa! men culpa!" when 
the evil is done. 

It was impossible for a man like 
Pius IX. to divest himself of the influ- 
ence of his surroundings, and so he 



412 



El'ROVE IN STORM AND CALM. 



could not believe that the wise and 
generous King, whose great heart was 
filled with such a burning flame of love 
for his country, could raise himself by a 
majestic effort, and one which will render 
his name immortal, above the tradition 
and the petty prejudices in which he had 
been raised, ami affront the mighty 
anger of Koine, witli the serene con- 
sciousness of one who felt that he was 
doing a duty which, although it might 
he disagreeable for a time, was necessary 
to the safety of the State- 
Victor Emmanuel enjoyed the last 
vears of his life to the full. He looked 
back upon his friendship with Cavour 
with pride and tender affection. Per- 
haps lie regretted now and then the 
necessities of his political situation, 
which had made him the opponent of 
so great and so energetic a patriot as 
Garibaldi; but, with one son called to 
the throne of Spain, and his own parlia- 
ment installed in the Eternal City, which 
had so long been the Mecca of his 
hopes ; with his family about him in the 
Quirinal, — he had every desire to lie 
courteous and conciliatory in his rela- 
tions witli tin' Holy See. 

In his capacity of sovereign of a new 
ami powerful nation he felt it his duty 
to make visits abroad; and his journeys 
to Vienna and Berlin in 1873 doubtless 
had much to do with the formation, some 
years later, of the alliance between 
North Germany and Austria, and did 
something to weaken the hostility which 
hail so lon;j; existed between invaded 
Italy and invading Austria. In 1*7."> 
the Emperor of Austria went even to 
Venice, which had been so recently taken 
out of his grasp, and in the same year 
the old Emperor of Germany went to 
Milan. The beautiful northern city was 
resplendent for a week, and the Italian 
public blustered a little in those days, 



claiming that their country had reached 
the stature of a tirst-class power. 

Under Victor Emmanuel's reign the 
noble and self-sacrificing Mazzini died, 
at Pisa, and his funeral, at Genoa, was 
attended by more than eighty thousand 
people. The country was not unmindful 
in its happy days of those who had 
worked so industriously in varying paths 
and by widely diverse methods for its 
unification, and beautiful monuments 
were erected to the memory of Cavour 
and to Mazzini in Turin and Home. 
The history of Italy, from the estab- 
lishment of the national capital at Rome 
until Victor Emmanuel's death, was full 
of instances of devotion to the memory 
of patriots. 

Victor Emmanuel died in January of 
1878, after a brief illness, and a great 
sadness fell upon the peninsula. There 
were few Liberal Italians who would 
have ventured to say that he had 
not been a good King. " He was," 
savs a French writer, " in appearance 
like an ancient Cimbrian chief, who 
possessed what he had by right of con- 
quest. He was patient and resolute, 
a clever and dexterous politician, and 
daily gave proof of rare, sagacity. With 
his vast shoulders, his Herculean limbs, 
his face, with its irregular and fero- 
cious lineaments, he was striking and 
impressive in uniform, with his helmet 
on his huge head. With his lofty and 
majestic carriage, his sparkling eyes, 
and especially in battle, he was quite 
fine." Even his Catholic enemies 
speak enthusiastically of his .soldierly 
qualities. A Catholic writer has said 
of him that "he knew little of literature, 
and was hardly interested in art, finding 
' those things.' as he called them, in- 
compatible with the trade of arms or 
the exercise of the chase. But he had 
the temperament of his race, the foxes 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



413 



of Savoy. He excelled in bringing 
out the resources of his good sense, 
when he was among his ministers, 
whom he treated as he pleased, like 
most of the constitutional sovereigns 
who have had councils thrust upon 
them. On the field of battle lie main- 
tained a noble attitude, in spite of his 
Hun-like heaviness. He was rather too 
fond of boasting of his military ex- 
ploits. He would say, with the accent 



of a hero: 'I -am covered with 
wounds,' when he had only been 
touched upon the thigh. . . . He 
was no mediocre monarch. He knew 
how to make his homely visage gra- 
cious, amiable, and almost handsome 
His voice was now rude, now tender. 
Huge and portly, he knew how to take 
on soldierly or royal manners, accord- 
ing to the person whom he was desir- 
ous of impressing." 



414 



EUROPE IS STORM ASD CALM. 



CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. 

The Pope at the Vatican.— The Daily Life of Leo XIII. —Its Picturesque, Spiritual, ami Political Aspects. 
I the AVar Between the Vatican and the Quirinal. — The Aims and Ambitions 

oftheCathol Italy. — Evolution or R -Prophecies of the Catholics. — "Unre- 

deemed I 



THE Italian nation insisted that 
Victor Emmanuel's mortal remains 
should be laid in the Pantheon, that 
splendid building which stands among 
the ruins of old Rome as the particular 
jewel of ancient architecture ; an 
the monarch is entombed under the - 
mighty roof that shelters the gentle 
Raphael. To the throne of Italy came 
Prince rmberto. who. at first much 
criticised, and treated perhaps with 
mild suspicion by certain factions of his 
people, has known how to win the af- 
fections of the nation, and at times 
to merit their enthusiastic applause. 
1 grit in these sons of 
mauuel ; in the stately, pale- 
faced Prince Amadeo, who was bravo 
a : to put away from him the crown 
of Spain when tie saw that he could not 
- ct retain it : and in this 
equally stately and equally pah - 
King L"mbi ly seut his 

pliments to the Pope on the day that he 
leached the throne, and who stood up 
in his father's tracks with as much t - 
and ss as if he had practised the 

attitude for years. 

King Umberto and Queen Margherita 
have already on : 

5. get is. ud kindly deeds. 

Their chief aim is I 

power to consolidate th tl unity : 

and even in lit js t e new king is 

'ul of the opinion of his various 



States. Not long ago it was determined 
to build a royal railway train : and when 
the King saw the jealousy awakened in 
the different sectii - of the peninsula 
as ' ■ tht establishment which should 
have the privilege of constructing the 
train, he arranged it so that some portion 
of the eqt _ should be built in each 
part of Italy where railway works were 

located. 

S _ has a civil list of about 
15. Oi e. a modest fortune for a 
- \ creign : and to this is 
added 100, franc- or lire, for the ex- 
penses of representation. This is less 
than is allowed to the President of the 
ch Republic. The family gave up 
all i'.s private domains to the country in 

- - . When the King or members 
his family travel from place to place 
in Italy, all the expenses of journey 
and residence are paid by the nation. 
King I'uiberto specially likes the Quir- 
inal. not because his residence there is a 
- _ of the victory over Rome, but 
cause he passed many happy years there 
fore he took responsibili- 
ties upon his shoulders. 

This Quirinal Palace was built for the 
popes, and has been a favorite residence 
of the tenants of Peter's chair since 
the time : ' gory XIII. It has a 
court-yard surrounded with a por- 
tico, a magnificent royal hall, the 
•• Pauline Chapel." in which the cardi- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



415 



nals used to assemble in conclave, and 
where they were wont to vote for the elec- 
tion of the Popes. In this palace died Pius 
VII. ; and here he was made a prisoner 
1 > v order of Napoleon I., when that 
energetic conqueror had had the papal 
doors smashed open by blows from 
axes. 

Pius IX. escaped from this palace in 
disguise in 1849. Here was also the 
private chapel of the Pope, in which is 
one of the finest works of Guido. The 
Pauline chapel was deconsecrated by the 
Pope on the evening of the entry of the 
Italian army into Rome, and on the 
same night the priceless pictures and 
tapestries were carried away to the 
Vatican. 

There is a new Pope at the Vatican. 
but there is no new policy there. The 
able and aggressive ecclesiastic who 
succeeded to Pius IX. accepted the 
legacy of the dead prelate; and Papal 
Rome is as unbending in its attitude as 
it was under Victor Emmanuel. Leo 
XIII., as he chose to call himself, because 
he had a great veneration for Leo XII.. 
would in any station of life have been a 
remarkable man. His originality and 
his firmness of will are unbounded. 
When he was Archbishop of Perugia 
lie came into collision with Victor 
Emmanuel, who was then beginning to 
extend the Liberal influence of the Savoy 
Monarchy into Italy. A royal decree dis- 
persed the members of certain religious 
orders in the diocese, whereupon the 
archbishop wrote a letter to the King, 
protesting in the most vigorous language 
against the repeated insults to the holy 
religion, and alluding to the miserable 
condition to which the new policy was 
reducing the monkish fraternity. When 
Victor Emmanuel arrived at Perugia, iu 
1869, the Archbishop was invited, with 
the civil and military authorities, to 



present his homage to the King ; but, lie 
declined. 

The new Pope had to wait many years 
for a Cardinal's hat, which he had well 
won by his services to the Church in 
Belgium, and other northern countries, 
for Cardinal Antonelli, who had such 
powerful influence over Pius IX., was 
hostile to this grave, studious, ascetic 
Archbishop Pecci. Gregory XVL, the 
predecessor of Pius IX., had been ready 
to give him the cardinalate iu 1846 ; 1 nit 
when Pius IX. came in, he made the Arch- 
bishop, who was meantime installed iu 
Perugia, wait many years. 

After Antonelli's death Cardinal Pecci 
rapidly came into prominence ; and in 
the autumn of 1877, when the rumor of 
the death of Pius IX. was spread abroad 
in Rome every morning, Pecci's name 
was constantly mentioned as a probable 
successor. He had been made a kind of 
vice-pope while the holy see was vacant 
during the illness of Pius IX., and every 
morning his enemies and friends expected 
to see him come down from his apart- 
ments to strike his mallet upon the fore- 
head of the dead Pontiff, and address to 
him the consecrated formula: " Dost 
thou not sleep?" 

"When on the 9th of February, 187S, 
Pius IX. died, there was little endeavor 
made to intrigue against the man who 
seemed so clearly destined for the succes- 
sion to the chair. The Cardinal was very 
modest, and seemed half inclined to re- 
fuse the great dignity ; but when, after 
the numerous votes in the College of 
Cardinals, after all the votes of polite- 
ness, as they are called, according to the 
Italian custom, had been made, around 
Cardinal Pecci's name the necessary 
votes for the election were grouped ; so 
the additional questions were asked him, 
and he replied: "I think myself un- 
worthy of the supreme magistracy, but 



4i c» 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



as the Holy College seems to be agreed, 
I must submit to the will of (iod. In 
remembrance of Leo XII., for whom I 
have always professed a great venera- 
tion, I wish to be called Leo XIII." 
Then the first deacon, appearing in the 
exterior loge of the Church of .St. Peter, 
uttered the solemn words, which an- 
nounced to the Romans the election of a 
new Pope : — 

" Annunlio ruin's gaudium magnum. 
Papam habemus Eminentiss. ac-Mev- 
erindis. Domin. Cardin. Pecci electus 
est in Summum Pontificem, et elegit sibi 
nomen Leo XIII." 

Leo XIII. is tall, and as lean as a monk 
of the old Thebaid. Ilis white robe 
floats loosely about his almost flesbless 
limbs. It is sometimes said of him that 
he is the image of Voltaire ; but, while 
the expression of his face is not unlike 
that of the great philosopher and sceptic, 
it has less of malice and of sarcastic 
vigor, more of stern determination, 
tempered by the indefinable sweetness 
which seems inseparable from the priestly 
expression, and is doubtless born of 
purity of life and temperate manners. 
Leo XIII. in private life is simple, affec- 
tionate, amiable, witty ; his face is pale, 
but his eyes are deep, clear, and, 
despite his advanced age, sparkling. He 
is not an orator, like Pius IX., but he is 
a clever writer ; in the presence of a 
crowd of listeners he would be troubled. 
Pius IX. was a real orator, taking his 
inspiration from the throng. Whether 
he writes in Latin or in Italian, the new 
Pope is thoroughly master of his pen. 
He is a statesman who lias been well 
nourished in controversial law, and who 
likes polemics. He is fond of Dante 
and delighted at any new discovery of 
an ancient and rare edition of the great 
Florentine, lie said one day to a friend : 
"I can recite the ' Divina Commedia' 



from one end to the other. " The friend 
was amused at this, and put him to the 
test ; whereupon the Pope recited pas- 
sage after passage in a deep, melodious 
voice, evidently with great delight. In 
some of his encyclical letters there is 
the stamp of Dante's style. When he 
was archbishop of Perugia he wrote 
much poetry, now in Latin, now in 
Italian. 

If the Pope is to lie considered as 
prisoner to the wicked Italian governr 
ment it must be allowed that he has a 
splendid prison. The great Vatican 
cluster of palaces and museums has 
more than thirteen thousand rooms, 
twenty vast courts, eight state stairways, 
and an infinite number of halls, galleries, 
chapels, corridors, libraries, and muse- 
ums. The Sistine Chapel and the Vatican 
Library, the Loggie of Raphael, and the 
picture and sculpture gallery form cer- 
tainly a noble residence for a scholar and 
a priest. 

The present Pope leads a laborious 
life, like all his predecessors. He rises 
at six o'clock, and after a hasty toilet 
engages in devotions. At half-past 
seven he goes to his particular chapel, 
where he celebrates mass. On .Sunday a 
small congregation is admitted, and he 
distributes the Eucharist. He next at- 
tends a second mass, after which he re- 
turns to his private apartments, where 
he breakfasts alone, very quickly and 
modestly. 

The part of the Vatican which has 
been specially devoted to papal residence 
since the sixteenth century overlooks St. 
Peter's square. In it there is a monu- 
mental staircase, having two hundred 
and ninety-nine steps in white marble. 
which serves the halls in the three stories. 
Here is the famous "Swiss Guard," 
which still wears the motley garb adopted 
by it in the middle ages. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



417 



On the first floor is the " Hall of the 
Consistory," where the Pope consults 
the cardinals on the affairs of the church. 
At the end of this hall is the pontifical 
throne. Through a series of antecham- 
bers one reaches the private offices of 
the Pope; and here is the hall of the 
noble guard, composed of eighty mem- 
bers of the nobility, com- 
manded by a Roman prince. 
Their uniform is that of the 
garde (hi car/is of Louis 
XVIII. Formerly this guard 
accompanied the Pope in all 
ceremonies ; but now that he 
goes out but little, the insti- 
tution is falling into decay. 
The " throne hall " is used for 
allofficial receptions. Beyond 
are the private apartments, 
the bedrooms the dining- 
rooms, and the library of the 
great head of the Church. 

There is little harmony, and 
not much exterior splendor, in 
this group of palaces and mu- 
seums, famous throughout 
the civilized world ; but so 
many traditions cluster about 
the Vatican, so many histor- 
ical souvenirs are evoked by 
it, that not even the most 
prosaic traveller sees it with- 
out a thrill. In the old 
palace attached to the Basilica 
of St. Peter, which is said to have dated 
from the time of Constantine, Charle- 
magne resided when he came to Rome to 
be crowned by Leo III., and Pope Inno- 
cent III. entertained one of the kings 
of Arngon in the palace which succeeded 
to this primitive one. For more than a 
thousand years the Popes lived in the 
Lateran Palace, to which good Catholics 
suspect the present Italian government 
of a wish to transfer them again. 



After the return of the Popes from 
their temporary home at Avignon, in 
the closing years of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, they adopted the Vatican as their 
permanent residence. Gregory XL 
liked the pontifical palace because of the 
neighborhood of the Castle of St. 
Angelo, which he thought afforded the 




ATTENDANTS AND OFFI- 
CIALS AT THE VATI- 
CAN. 

papal court greater se- 
curity than it enjoyed 
elsewhere. Each Pope 
seems to have done all 
that the resources of his 
treasury allowed to beautify and improve 
this head-quarters of the hierarchy of the 
Christian world. Sixtus the IV. built 
the Sistine Chapel; Innocent VII f. the 
Belvedere ; the great Julius II. the cel- 
ebrated " Loggie," the terraces, and laid 
the foundations of the Vatican museum. 
It was he who placed iu this museum the 
Laocoon, the Apollo, and the Cleopatra, 
ruder Raphael's direction Leo X. fin- 
ished the Loggie. Sixtus V. spoiled the 



41S 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



unity of Bramante's plan by building the 
Vatican Library across the architect's 
rectangle. It was the same Pope who 
began the imposing palace on the easl 
side dt' the remit of the Loggie, which is 
now the ordinary residence of the Popes. 
Urban VIII. ordered the construction of 
the Scala Eegia ; ('lenient XIV. and Pius 
VI. built the fine ranee of rooms over the 




TOPE LEO XIII. IX Ills' PRIVATE CABINET 



museum named after them; Pius VII. 
added the wing which covers part of the 
celebrated terrace ; Leo X. founded a 
picture-gallery, which Gregory XVI. 
finished : and this latter pontiff in- 
augurated the Etruscan Museum. Pius 
IX. was never weary of contributing to 
the splendor of the Vatican. Under his 
reign the Loggie were enclosed in glass, 
thus saving Raphael's frescoes from the 
ravages of weather; the picture-gal- 
leries were greatly improved, the grand 



state staircase was finished, and the re- 
ception-rooms were made superb with 

f reset >cs. 

Thus, for four centuries, the Popes 
have delighted to leave behind them, as 
their especial monuments, the practical 
execution of their ideas as to the enrich- 
ment of the sacred palace. It is said 
that l.eo XIII. has conceived the idea 
of devoting all his spare 
leisure to the creation of 
a magnificent monument 
commemorative of the 
extraordinary pontificate 
of Tins IX. The plan 
has lone been in process 
of elaboration, and the 
most distinguished sculp- 
tors in the kingdom have 
been consulted about it. 
Each of the great acts 
of the reign of Pius IX. 
are, it is said, to lie illus- 
trated by allegorical mar- 
ble groups. 

The division of the 
Pope's laborious day will 
lie full of interest to all. 
After his meagre fust 
breakfast, — which heal- 
most invariably takes 
alone, although now and 
then, as a special favor, 
which makes infinite 
gossip in Koine, he has one or two 
friends near liini while he partakes of 
his simple repast, — he g<ies to work 
as systematically as the most ener- 
getic man of business. At half-past 
nine he receives the Cardinal Sec- 
retary, of State, then the Cardinals 
who are prefects of congregations, the 
Secretary of Latin Letters, the Sec- 
retary of the Uriel's, and the Princes; 
finally such persons as are admitted 
to the honor of a special interview. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



419 



On Mondays, and sometimes on Thurs- 
days, he gives public receptions, a 
ceremonial which is familiar to thou- 
sands of American and English travel- 
lers. Leo XIII. is not so fond of 
these receptions as was Pius IX., al- 
though the latter prelate sometimes 
found his patience almost exhausted 
by the infinite number of questions as 
well as the great number of compli- 
ments hurled upon him by 
the enthusiastic visitors. 
Anything that causes the 
present Pope a loss of 
time fatigues and annoys 
him. He is not fond 
of making addresses to 
troops of pilgrims or sym- 
pathetic Frenchmen, or 
penitent Austrians, who 
come and bow at his 
feet. Pius IX. was more 
adroit in his manner of 
treating the multitude 
than the new Pope can 
ever hope to be. The 
former had the more 
tact ; the latter has the 
greater majesty. 

A good story is told of 
Pius IX., showing how even the successor 
of Peter may sometimes find his dignity 
give way under the pressure of a rude curi- 
osity or an indiscreet admiration. One 
day when the Pope was quite weary with 
a long public reception, a lady who 
had a special letter of introduction 
knelt before the Pope, begging for his 
benediction, which he bestowed as 
usual. 

The lady entered into a long con- 
fession of her many troubles. The 
Pope, who was ready to drop with fa- 
tigue, tried to console her, and the 
more he consoled the more she talked. 
until he was compelled to say that he 



must withdraw. Upon this she began 
with greater volubility than ever. 
" Holy Father." 

"What will you have more, my 
daughter? " 

" My husband has begged me to 
give you his photograph." 

"Very well; I accept it. Thank him 
on my part." 

"But, Holy Father" — 




THE 



POPE RECEIVES 
VISITOR. 



"What next?" 

"I would like to take back to my 
husband your Holiness's photograph." 

" That is quite right. I will give 
you one ; " which he proceeded to do. 

" And now, Holy Fattier, if you 
would kindly write your autograph on 
the back of the photograph." 

" Very well," said the Pope ; " I will 
do that also." 

Then he was about to throw down 
the pen with which he had hastily writ- 
ten his priestly signature, when the 
lady, laying hold of his skirts, said, 
" Holy Father, there is one thing 
more." 



420 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



"Indeed!" said the Pope, with a 
shiver of indignation, " what ran it 
be?" 

" I must ask you for the pen with 
which you have written the autograph." 

•' Very well, take the pen, the ink- 
stand, and, tor Heaven's sake, go at 
once, my good woman," cried the Pope, 
releasing his skirts and making his way 
to his private apartments. 

Leo XIII. sometimes invites visitors 
who please him into his private rooms, 
— a proceeding which doubtless would 
have scandalized the other Popes. It' 
a delegation of workmen comes to lay 
an address at his feet he shows them 
all about, takes them even into his 
bedroom, chatting on secular and re- 
ligions matters with the greatest free- 
dom, and frequently makes many con- 
verts and friends for life among 
the lower classes in this way. He 
speaks French with a strong Italian 
accent, but with skill and vigor of ex- 
pression. 

At half-past two the Pope dines 
alone and frugally; then he takes a 
little naii, never more than a quarter 
of an hour in length ; his doctors call 
this his '-Armistice," and insist upon 
this daily leisure. As soon as he goes 
out of his private room he recites the 
divine office, reads for a short time in 
a religious book, and then goes back 
to his duties. At five o'clock he re- 
ceives the bishops, who always come 
to bring him the news, and to tell him 
of troubles which crop up in their 
dioceses; and the secretaries of the 
various congregations have an endless 
succession of reports to make. At this 
hour of the day the Pope represents 
a more wide-spread constituency than 
any other ruler in the world. There 
are Catholics everywhere, and the 
agents of the Church are daily sending 



to the head-quarters at Rome reports 

of manners and customs, of agriculture, 
industry, commerce, aits, science, let- 
ters, politics, and religions. 

A bright writer on clerical affairs calls 
the Vatican the most elevated of observ- 
atories, whence the Pope can note with 
precision the affairs of Honolulu as well 
as those of Paris or of St. Petersburg. 
The l'ope listens with attention and 
even witli curiosity to every letter and 
written or oral report. In him the am- 
bition of the Church does not sleep. He 
is as proud of a spiritual victory at- 
tained in Dakota as of one which has 
been won in Germany. He fully appre- 
ciates the Catholic genius for evangeli- 
zation, and believes that the strength of 
his Church is in the marvellous discipline 
and organization which it is his duty to 
supervise. The popular Protestant idea 
of a Pope is a mild and genial elderly 
gentleman, refined in intellect, and of 
exalted spirituality, who passes his time 
in grand ceremonials, amid clouds of 
incense and the genuflection of elab- 
orately costumed prelates, and whose 
leisure is plentiful enough to enable him 
to enjoy the splendors of ancient and 
modern Koine, by which he is sur- 
rounded. But the real Pope is, as 
we have seen, an active, responsible, 
energetic head, daily awakening to new 
duties, new crises, new situations, which 
demand immediate thought. He has to 
discuss affairs in Europe, Africa, Ocean- 
ica, Asia, and America : and daily, 
after his inferiors come in with their 
reports, and long after they are gone, 
he leans over his desk, which is 
heaped with documents and letters and 
writes, reads, annotates, and muses 
until half-past ten, when he is summoned 
to a simple supper. Now and then the 
supper is cut short by an excess of work, 
for the Pope goes to bed with military 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



421 



precision at eleven. Sometimes his 
chamberlain has found him, worn out 
with thought and toil, with his head 
buried in his hands, asleep at his desk. 
It requires a robust physique and great 
strength of character to support the con- 
stant and somewhat monotonous round 
of daily duties to which a Pope gives his 
life when he takes the reins of authority 
into his own hands. 

Since the invasion of Rome, as the 
Catholics call it, the Pope is not sup- 
posed to leave the Vatican. Pius IX. 
adhered sternly to his decision not to 
appear in any of the ceremonials once 
so familiar to the populace in the streets 
of Pome ; and the present Pope is his 
faithful follower in this respect. Exer- 
cise, however, he must have, and so he 
gets it, now by pacing one of the great 
corridors of the palace ; now he is taken 
down to the gardens in a sedan chair, 
through the beautiful loggie of Raphael, 
past the frescoes of the great " School 
of Athens " and " The Dispute ;" or now 
he drives a little in the shady alleys of the 
garden or on the tlanks of the neighbor- 
ing hill. When he goes out he is rarely 
accompanied by any persons save those 
on duty that day, and at a little dis- 
tance a small platoon of the guard, 
composed of the Roman nobility, which 
does voluntary service as bis escort. 
In these out-door promenades the Pope 
is never idle. He either recites his 
breviary, be opens and reads his de- 
spatches, which he has brought along 
with him ; or, if he has invited some 
prelate to accompany him, they talk 
business and religion. But he always, 
says one who is familiar with the inte- 
rior of the Vatican, seems anxious to 
get back to his work. 

Leo XIII. is very independent in his 
choice of functionaries and friends. As 
soon as he was made Pope he sent for 



the master of ceremonies to proceed 
with the division of the list of employes 
at the Papal Court. The master of cere- 
monies read them off one by one, and 
the Pope was ready with a name to 
place opposite each title. lie would 
hear of no objections to his choice, and 
he set aside as useless some of the old- 
fashioned offices, much to the dismay 
and discomfiture of prelates who had 
hoped to have obtained them. He has 
a horror for sinecures, and picks them 
out with infallible vision, expressing a 
keen delight in suppressing them. He 
would never make a cardinal, as Pius 
IX. is said to have done in the case of a 
certain French prelate, because "if I 
had not made a cardinal of him he would 
have died of chagrin." The tradition of 
the Vatican is that when a new Pope 
comes out from the conclave at which 
be has been elected, he places the cardi- 
nal's cap upon the head of the person 
who served as secretary of the assem- 
bly ; but Leo XIII. did nothing of the 
kind, much to the surprise of the Sacred 
College. It was a year before the new 
Pope announced his first promotion in 
the list of cardinals. He cannot be re- 
proached with having insisted upon the 
too Italian character of the Sacred Col- 
lege, for he has made appointments in 
many lands. 

The Roman families which claim no- 
bility are devoted to the Vatican ; and it 
is but natural that they should lie so, as 
most of them owe their origin to papal 
protection. Thus we are told that the 
Albanis got their fortune through Clem- 
ent XI. : the Aldobraiidinis, through 
Clement VIII. ; the Barberinis, through 
Urban VIII. ; the Borgheses, through 
Paul V. ; the Chigis, through Alexander 
VII. ; the Colonnas, through Martin V . ; 
the Odescalchis, through Innocent XI. ; 
the Rospigliosis, through Clement IX. ; 



422 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and so on ad infinitum. In Roman 
society the cardinals take the first place ; 
princes and dukes come next, and gen- 
erally, says a good authority, in the 
order of their creation, with the excep- 
tion always of the chiefs of the Colonna 
and Orsini families, who are hereditary 
princes, attendant upon the throne, and 
who take precedence of all their com- 
peers. 

Iu two years the Pope had changed 




QUEEN OF ITALY. 

his secretary of state twice. He in- 
tended, and still intends, to allow no 
one to take in his life the important 
place which Cardinal Antonelli had 
taken in that of Pius IX., although the 
latter was generally accredited with 
deciding pretty vigorously for himself 
on great matters. Pius IX. was not 
verv tolerant on any remonstrance ad- 
dressed him by the College of Cardinals ; 
but the new Pope is open to conviction, 
and listens to all with the greatest 



attention. He is inflexible in his de- 
mands for discipline and hard work 
among his followers. It is said that one 
day a Frenchman, who had just been 
accorded an interview, said to the priest 
who had accompanied him, " How very 



affable the Tope is! 



Yes." said the 



priest, with a bitter smile, " affable to 
Strangers." This priest had been kept 
up all night to study a report with which 
he was in arrears. 

The notion that the Pope is over- 
whelmed with contributions of money 
and treasure from all parts of the world, 
and that his coffers are overflowing with 
Peter's Pence, is said to be a mistaken 
one. He talks frequently of the penury 
of his resources, and Romans who are 
in a position to judge say that he does 
not exaggerate his circumstances. He 
finds sums for liberal charities, and 
perhaps takes a little pleasure in giving 
more generously from his own lean purse 
than the King, who, as the representative 
of the nation, feels compelled to give. A 
committee of cardinals was charged by 
the Pope, after the hitter's accession to 
power, carefully to administer the Peter's 
Pence, which was the most important 
source of revenue of the Holy See; but 
nowadays there are perpetual com- 
plaints that it is not sufficient for the 
needs of the Vatican. Hundreds, and 
even thousands, of useless presents are 
made where money would be more 
acceptable. The gentlemen of the 
Roman nobility who are on service at 
the Vatican join with the Pope in some 
noble charities. One Roman prince 
gave, in the severe winter of 187D-80, 
seventy-five thousand meals to the poor 
of the capital. The Pope himself, on 
New Year's day of that "winter, gave 
15,000 francs from his private purse to 
charity. 

Although he has reestablished very 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



423 



carefully all the etiquette of the Papal 
Court, etiquette which had fallen some- 
what into decay since 1870, he does not 
allow the cardinals to go out in gala 
carriages. The processions are all kept 
carefully within the churches, and the 
tiles of chanting brethren, carrying huge 
candles, which follow funeral processions, 
are almost the only relic of the copious 
and magnificent Catholic ceremonial, 
some phase of which was once visible 
hourly in Rome. 

The Pope finds time in the midst of 
his apostolate, in the intervals of the 
careful study of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
for whom he has a veritable passion, and 
the spread of whose doctrines he recom- 
mends to all the bishops, to occupy 
himself with modern progress. He 
writes copiously and freely for two or 
three Roman newspapers, which are the 
official representatives of the Papal 
Court ; and there was at one time since 
his accession a grand project for found- 
ing a huge newspaper, the size of the 
" London Times," to be the official jour- 
nal of the Vatican, and to embody in its 
many columns every day the epitome of 
the Catholic world. It was proposed 
that this novel journal should be printed 
in a dozen languages ; but the scheme 
was given up altogether as extensive and 
expensive. 

Not long ago the Pope founded an 
academy for the study of Roman law 
and philosophy, ecclesiastical law, and 
comparative civil legislation. The grand 
polyglot academy session, which was 
held at the Vatican in April, 1S80, will 
not soon be forgotten. It brought to- 
gether forty-nine different languages, 
all of which were well spoken by the 
representatives of the Catholic faith in 
eve^ quarter of the world. The diplo- 
mats who are sent to the Papal Court by 
countries which still recognize the tem- 



poral sovereignty of the Pope are said 
to be somewhat annoyed at the facility 
with which the august Pontiff sends his 
views to the public journals, lie often 
adopts sudden publicity as a way of 
getting out of a political situation which 
is disagreeable to him. 

The programme of the Vatican appears 
to be susceptible of but little change in 
one respect : there will be no recon- 
ciliation with the Quirinal ; and this is 




KING OK ITALY. 

the reason given by the Catholic authori- 
ties : In the first place, alter his election, 
Leo XIII. took a solemn oath upon the 
Gospels, in the presence of the Sacred 
College, according to the constitution 
and the canons, that he would not abdi- 
cate the rights of the Holy See and the 
domain of St. Peter; and, furthermore, 
the present King of Italy does not 
possess the authority to restore the 
Papal States. With this point of view 
established in the Catholic mind, it is 



424 EUROl'K IN STORM AND PALM. 

evident that little progress can be made, lies to vote and work with the Republicans 
Leo Xlll.'s plan of action is summed up for the upsetting of this monarchy. They 
in the winds: ••Neither concession nor hail every revolution and disorder as a. 
provocation." The Holy See considers step forward towards the emancipation 
the temporal power as an inherent part of Rome ; yet they might have seen, by 
of the Constitution of the Church from events in France in 1871, that a social- 
the earliest dawn of Christianity. Its istie and radical revolution may lie put 
own historians say that the Popes became down without destroying a. republic, 
sovereigns without, knowing how they They say that Italian unity has profited 
became so ; that an invisible law raised none but the middle or bourgeois class ; 
up the Roman See; and that the chief that the country is going straight from 
of the Roman Universal Church is evolution to revolution; that the re- 
born a sovereign. They scoff at the sources of the kingdom are all absorbed 
•' law of guarantees," which "established by taxation; that the constant agitation 
the official relations between the new in favor of the " unredeemed provinces," 
kingdom and the Holy See." They say as the radical patriots call Savoy. Nice, 
that it is a law imposed by the con- Corsica. Malta. Tunis, Tyrol, and the 
queror upon the conquered, and that, Tessino, will he a powerful aid in bring- 
although it accords the Pope sovereign ing about a revolution ; that the Italians, 
honors, and assigns him a civil list of instead of saying in the noble woi'ds of 
several millions of francs (which neither Mazziui: "God and People" (Dio e 
the present Pope nor Pius IX. would popolo), now put an accent over thee, and 
accept), it is perilous and irreligious in say- "God is the people" (Dio <'• popolo) 
its action. The retreat of Pius IX. to They speak of the Republican manifesta- 
ble Vatican was therefore necessitated tions and festivities in recent years at 
by the loss of his independence, and his Genoa, Bologna, Rimini, Ancona, and 
successors must follow his exile until — Turin, and prophesy that it will not he 
Until what? The Catholic view of the long before King Humbert will have to 
situation in Italy is. that, in process of convokes constituent assembly, in which 
time, a radical and republican revolution the destiny of the Italian nation will he 
will sweep away the House of Savoy, decided. 

and that then the people will proceed This view of the intelligent and amhi- 

to excesses which will necessitate tious Catholics of Italy is worthy of 

intervention, a return to royalty, and careful note. Perhaps a portion of their 

the rcestahlishuient of all the Papal prophecy will be fulfilled ; hut it is not 

privileges This conviction is so fixed probable that in our day the temporal 

in the minds of many Catholics of power will he restored to the chief of 

Italy that they not only make no secret the Church at the Vatican, or wherever 

of it, hut have holillv urged the Catho- else he may choose his residence. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



t25 



CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. 



The German Parade on Longchamps. — The Triumphal Entry Into Paris. — Shadows of Civil War. — 
Outbreak of " La Commune." — The Greatest Insurrection of Modern Times — Its ( 'auses and Its 
Hopes. — The Association of the Generals. — The First Fights. — The Manifestation of the "Friends 
of Order." 



WHILE the French Assembly was 
agonizing at Bordeaux over the 
odious articles of the treaty of peace, 

King William of Prussia and his suite 
■were passing in review the Sixth and the 
Eleventh Prussian corps, and the remains 
of the Second Bavarian corps, on the 
green sward at Longchamps. King Wil- 
liam had been over this ground twice 
lief ore in his life, as a conqueror in LSI 1- 
15, and as a visitor in 18G7, when sixty 
thousand of the flower of the French 
troops marched past him. 

A little less than thirty thousand tier- 
mans participated in the review. The 
old monarch was stationed near the 
mined race-stand and seats on Long- 
champs, which had been entered by the 
Trocadero and Passy route, and by the 
long and brilliant Avenue de 1' Impera- 
trice. The King and the Crown Prince, 
however, returned to Versailles, making 
no attempt to enter Paris at the head of 
their troops in the style supposed to be 
traditionally fit for conquerors. The 
strict observance of Article III. of the 
conditions of peace was continued, so as 
1 > avoid all danger of collision between 
the Prussians and the Parisians. The 
mass of the German army cared very 
little about the ; - triumphant entry." 
Paris was in universal mourning on this 
1st of March ; a black day for Frenchmen 
to count from and to swear against. 
There were but few cannon in the streets. 
Proclamations had been posted in cer- 



tain quarters containing threats against 
the lives of those who sold anything to 
Germans, or were seen speaking to them. 
Black flags and long streamers of mourn- 
ing were everywhere displayed. The 
statues of Strasbourg, Metz, Lille, and 
the sister cities in the grand Place de la 
Concorde, were veiled and masked with 
crape, and here great barriers were 
erected at the streets into which the Con- 
vention did not allow the Germans to 
penetrate. The German troops did not 
pass under the Triumphal Arch, which 
bad been surrounded with a barrier of 
iron chains, as if to intimate that no 
German could soil the sacred earth by 
his 'presence. The inarch called ••The 
Entry of Paris," which was played by 
the regimental bands, was first heard in 
the Champs Elysees in 1814, when the 
victorious Allies entered. 

Bismarck came in, almost unperceived, 
in a little caleche, and, muffled in a huge 
gray cloak, went to the barriers of the 
Place de la Concorde. 

One of the most pathetic episodes of 
the occupation of Paris was the invasion 
of the Hotel des Invalides. Doubtless 
there was a little malice on the part of 
the Germans in stipulating for this priv- 
ilege. The haughty invader was glad to 
penetrate the old sanctuary of military 
glory around Napoleon's tomb, where 
some of his aged heroes, toothless, and 
but poorly provided with legs and arms, 
were still lingering above ground. Swag- 



126 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



gering officers in black and red, with 
their white gloves and their gala swords, 
interrogated the old invalids concerning 
the flags in the chapel, and probed the 
carvings around the great Emperor's 
tomb with their weapons. This was an 
overwhelming measure of vengeance, and 
so the old French heroes thought. 

No doubt there were some excesses 

committed during the short occupation. 
Paul ile St. Victor has said of the Prus- 
sian, taking his inspiration from the 
portrait of Attila in the old chronicle: 
•■ lie is frank or crafty, just or unjust, 

temperate or dissolute, humane or cruel, 
according to his interests ; " and, it might 
be added, according to his prejudices. 
The German soldiers certainly did much 
mischief and damage in certain houses 
where they were quartered in Paris; but 
it turned out afterwards that these houses 
were owned by political or literary per- 
sonages who had been especially dis- 
agreeable to ( rermany. 

The outbreak of the Communal Insur- 
rection came swiftly after the departure 
of the Germans. On the great plain at 
the top of Montmartre, near the old sig- 
nal tower of the aerial telegraph, were 
parked a large number of cannon, which 
the National ( iuard had hauled up thither 
Cor safe-keeping. All around them they 
had built barricades to protect them, and 
many of the cannon were pointed towards 
the centre of Paris. The National (iuard 
threatened vengeance if these weapons 
were disturbed by Chanzy, or any other 
of the Generals whose troops were now 
arriving in Paris, fresh from the fields 
where they had met. 

Here was the easy pretext for an open 
rebellion of the National Guard. If 
the General Government, which had re- 
turned from Bordeaux to Versailles, and 
appeared likely to establish the capital 
of the country in the old city so recently 



evacuated by the Germans, should at- 
tempt to take these cannon, why might 
it not be suspected of designs upon the 
Republic? The logic was not very good, 
but the Communists from the first pro- 
claimed their suspicions that M. Thiers 
and his government meant to bring hack 
an empire or a monarchy. Early in 
March they issued a proclamation say- 
ing : •• The central committee of the Na- 
tional (iuard, nominated in an assembly 
of delegates representing more than two 
hundred battalions, announces as its mis- 
sion the constitution of a Republican fed- 
eration of the National ( iuard, organized 
so as to protect the government better 
than permanent armies have done up to 
the present time, and to defend the men- 
aced Republic by all possible means." 

The collision came. The government 
made its attack on the bluff of Mont- 
martre, to take the cannon of which the 
National (iuard was anxious to maintain 
possession. The positions were sur- 
rounded by a battalion of chasseurs-d,- 
pied and another from the One Hundred 
and Twenty-second regiment of the line, 
taken by General Faidherbe's army. The 
streets near by were occupied by line 
regiments, and there were mitrailleuse 
batteries in all the labyrinth of sideways 
and by-ways of dubious reputation which 
covered Montmartre's side. It is needless 
to recite the history of the conflict, which 
resulted in a defeat of the liners. The 
movement for carrying away the cannons 
was stopped with a vigorous assault. An 
immense disorganized body of the Na- 
tional (iuard rushed down upon the liners, 
and fraternized with them. Many of the 
regular troops were demoralized because 
their government was lost, and the revo- 
lution was practically declared. 

General Vinov was hissed at. and was 
obliged to retire hastily. The National 
Guard organized a meeting ; and while 



EUROPE IN STORM ANT) CALM. 



i-n 



they were deliberating, an immense crowd 
of men, women, and children blocked 
the passage of the cannon which the 
government artillerymen were vainly en- 
deavoring to move to a place of safety. 
"While this was going on, the battalions 
of Belleville came puffing and steaming 
into the fight, hot with a rapid march. 
The Montmartre rebels retired, the newly 



The agitation spread quickly to Belleville 
and the Faubourg St. Antoine, and the 
Place de la Bastille was covered with the 
rebel troops. 

The funeral procession of Victor Hugo's 
son Charles was stopped in the Rue St. 
Antoine by a revolutionary committee 
engaged on a barricade, who announced 
that it could go no farther. Towards 




THE TOP OF MONTMARTRE WHERE THE COMMUNIST CANNON WERE 

INSTALLED. 



arrived took their places, and a struggle 
began ; officers were beaten ; any man 
who raised his sword as if to command 
was shot at. Many of the government 
soldiers turned up the butts of their 
muskets in token of adhesion to the 
Revolution. The shooting grew more 
frequent and violent ; many persons were 
wounded in the cafes and houses. Several 
soldiers were slain ; finally the line troops 
mutinied, and a whole squadron of gen- 
darmes was surrounded and imprisoned. 



3 o'clock placards were posted announc- 
ing that the riot was in possession of the 
Montmartre, Belleville, and Faubourg 
St. Antoine quarters. In the heart of 
the city one heard that a " court-martial " 
was judging General Le Comte ; the old 
General Clement Thomas, commander 
of the National Guard of the city, was 
a prisoner. An hour later came the story 
that they had been foully assassinated 
without a chance of justifying themselves, 
by unknown persons, who compelled the 



428 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



soldiers of tlic line to shoot them. Both 
Generiil Thomas and Genera! Le ('unite 
were taken to a small house in the Rue 
des Uozicrs at. four o'clock that afternoon, 
and, without the semblance of a trial, 
were dragged into a garden, tied together, 
and fired upon. General Le Comte was 
killed at once by a hall which struck him 
behind the ear; General Thomas was not 
wounded by the first discharge, and when 
the second lilled him with his death wound, 
he cried out ••Cowards!" and waited 
tranquilly for the finishing stroke. 

At live o'clock on the afternoon of this 
fated 18th of March the insurgents were 
in full possession of the Hotel de Yillc 
The ministries of war and justice in the 
Place Vendoine and the regular govern- 
ment had hut one resource, that of retir- 
ing speedily to Versailles, or of falling 
into the hands of captors who might have 
proved severe judges. The Hotel de 
Yille was occupied by three regiments of 
the line ; hut the Communists succeeded 
in inducing them to retire without fight- 
ing. Hundreds of thousands of people 
came into the streets, and wandered about 
watching the movements of the Com- 
munists : but none of them was willing 
to believe that the movement was serious. 
At nine o'clock, the National Guard of 
Belleville were in possession of the whole 
central part of the city, had sent to 
demand the Official Journal, and were 
printing manifestoes of what they had 
done and proposed to do. They an- 
nounced the raising of the state of siege. 

the convocation of the people of Paris 
for the Communal elections, and guaran- 
teed the security of all citizens. They 
planted the led Hag on the Bastille 
column, took possession of the principal 
barracks; and excited foreigners were 
telegraphing in all directions that the 
Bed Republic would he firmly established 
in Paris on the following morning. 



The second important event in this 
greatest insurrection of modern times 
occurred on the 23d of March, when the 
•• Friends of Order," as they called them- 
selves, went, in long procession down the 
Rue de la Paix to the Place VendAme. 
to reason with the rebels, who had there 
established their head-quarters. Many 
people considered this foolhardy attempt 
as a lSonapartist trick, and refused for 
this purpose to associate themselves with 
it. The day was line, the sunshine rest- 
ing upon the white fronts of the noble 
buildings in the Pile de la Paix. and on 
the bronze Pegasus upspringing from the 
roof of the new opera. Thousands of 
ladies and gentlemen had gathered ill 
this square in front of the Grand Opera, 
and were looking curiously towards the 
Place Yendome, where there were four 
rows of shabby-looking sentinels, and 
where grinning cannon, pointed upon 
the gaping crowd of cockneys, could be 
seen. 

The Parisian loves danger and lacks 
caution; and therefore the thousands 
who came out to gaze upon the fortified 
camp of the insurrectionists singed for- 
ward through the boulevards until they 
were well into the mouth of the street. 
Meantime, the great mass meeting of 
the-' Friends of Order," held nearby, had 
dispersed, and the masses, shouting 
" Long live order !" moved down, sweep- 
ing all before them. In a few moments 
the dense mass of men. women, and chil- 
dren, nearly all from the upper ranks of 
society, were surrounding the insurgents, 
who at once beat their drums. The 
greatest activity prevailed in the Place 

Yendome. Messengers Wei e seen gallop- 
ing off to summon out new battalions, 
and new lines of guards sprang into sight 
from behind the barricades at the rear 
of the place. 1 saw the first line of in- 
surgents lift their guns warninglv, and 



EUROPE IN STORM ANU CALM. 



429 






> 

o 

a 

» 
> 



a 

Q 
O 




430 



EUROPE L\ STORM AND CALM. 



then retire as if frightened. While 
standing at the corner of the Rue des 
Petits Champs, which gave a direcl view 
upon the scene, I was amazed to see a 
whole line of sentinels suddenly envel- 
oped in the crowd. The gentlemen waved 
their hats in the air; ladies waving their 
parasols and handkerchiefs cried out. 
" Hurrah fororder ! Lay down your anus, 
and lei us lie friends!" At this moment 
there was a discharge of musketry ; but 
I saw that there was no confusion, and 
fancied (hat some of the frightened in- 
surgents had fired in the air. Suddenly 
a second sharp rattling volley ran out, 
one or two cries of •• Cowards and assas- 
sins ! '" were heard, and a general panic 
ensued. A few bullets rallied on the 
wall at. the corner where 1 stood. One 
wounded man was brought from the 
crowd into a side street, two rioters fol- 
lowing, andclaiminghimas their prisoner, 
and that he had tired upon them, lie 
was in the uniform of a Captain of Mo- 
biles, and was evidently dying. His 
face was deathly pale, and the foam was 
at his lips. Little quarrels immediately 
sprang up all around. Well-dressed 
gentlemen took away a musket from one 
of the insurgents, and menaced him with 
the contents of it if he did not return 
into his own lines. The cries became 
louder. People who were hastily putting 
up the shutters in all the shops and 
hotels along our street, even to the cor- 
nel' where the Bellevillians stood, joined 
in the outcry. Five minutes before, our 
street had been filled with flying people; 
five minutes after, it was silent as the 
grave. The red-white-and-blue Han, 
the tlag of France, was brought towards 
the line, bayonets and sabres were agi- 
tated violently in the air. the flag was 
torn down, and another discharge, this 
time louder and more effectual, occurred. 
Then the crowd lied, and the screams of 



women and the yells of frightened men 
resounded everywhere. The blow had 
fallen, the Revolution was in earnest, 
and the people of the aristocratic classes 
were now thoroughly convinced of it. 

About twenty men remained lying 
upon the ground, and were at once 
surrounded by the insurgents, who ex- 
amined them. Ambulance men came 
out from their ranks, and the dead were 
carried away on stretchers. Many 
people had received wounds in the 
arms and legs, but were able to get 
home. In ten minutes after the dead 
were removed the cannon were brought 
up to the entrance of the Place Veu- 
dome, and Sentinels were pushed for- 
ward into the Rue de la Pais. The in- 
dignation among the Friends of Order 
was so great that many returned along 
the bloody pavements and shook their 
lists in the faces of the soldiers. Num- 
bers of these people were arrested, and 
a commission of examination was at 
once instituted in one of the buildings 
in the Place Vendome. 

One man lay dead for two hours in 
front of a chemist's on the Rue de la 
Paix. He had evidently been instantly 
killed, and was forgotten in the metie 
of picking up, as the rebels were con- 
stantly expecting an attack from the 
National Guard of the quarter. An 
American from St. Louis was also 
killed by shots from the rioters. The 
celebrated banker Hottinguer, while 
caring for a wounded man. was hit 
in the chest. General Sheridan was 
an eye-witness of the affair, and, ac- 
cording to his testimony and that of 
many others, it would seem that the 
insurgents certainly received consider- 
able provocation to lire. Many of the 
men of order had revolvers in their 
pockets, and that they were used in 
the milie is certain, because some of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



431 



the Bellevillians were killed, aud many 
were wounded. 

The Rue Neuve des Petits Champs 
was occupied by a large force, and 
sentinels were placed before each door 
to guard against any surprise on the 
part of the infuriated battalion, which, 
having had one taste of blood, seemed 
discontented without more. The in- 
surgents gave me a soldier to accom- 
pany me to the head of the Rue de la 
Paix, and on our way we walked 
around a pool of fresh blood. The 
sentinels farther on had already as- 
sumed the revolutionary style. "Pas- 
ses, citoyen," said each one; and I 
gained the invaded quarter in safety. 
All the insurgents witli whom I talked 
seemed sorry that a collision had oc- 
curred, and some announced their opin- 
ion that it had injured the cause. 

On the following Friday morning I 
went with the American Consul aud 
other Americans to the Place Venddme 
to claim the body of our countryman 
who had been killed. We were readily 
admitted, and found the greatest calm 
prevailing in the Place; and an immense 
number of insurgents was gathered 
there. We were ushered into the 
Credit Mobilier, transformed into a hos- 
pital, and there saw five dead bodies, 
two of which were pointed out by the 
insurrectionists as belonging to their 
movement. One was a line, stalwart 
man, with flowing beard, but coarsely 
dressed iu blue garments, with a blue 
sash around his waist. lie was shot 
twice in the back of the head with 
revolver bullets, and we were told that 
it was the first victim in the collision. 
One man, exceedingly handsome, richly 
dressed, aud young, had been shot 
also in the head ; and on his counte- 
nance there was a ghastly expression 
of terror. The Commandant of the 



Place sanctioned the removal of the 
body for which we came ; and as the 
little procession, with a flag at its head, 
went out, all the insurgents doffed their 
hats. 

There were fresh alarms daily, but no 
more fighting. For many days after the 
retirement of Admiral Saisset to Ver- 
sailles the people of the central quarter 
of Paris thought they were at the mercy of 
the Red Republicans, and that there was 
nothing to do but to compromise the 
situation. They dreaded an attack by 
the government from Versailles, when' 
great masses of troops were assembling 
as fast as they could be returned from 
Germany; and a friend remarked tome, 
a few days after the collision in the Rue 
de la Paix, that the advance columns of 
General Ducrot's forces along the Sevres 
road would cause more fear and trem- 
bling in the capital than the advent of the 
Prussians did. We now and then heard 
great booming of cannon in the Prussian 
lines, and the Communists claimed that 
these guns were fired in mockery of thedis- 
sensions of the French, — an interpreta- 
tion which was of course absurd. As for 
the Prussians, they were well satisfied with 
the season of rest which had arrived ; and 
at St. Denis, at Knghien, at Montmo- 
rency, and at all the suburbs in the 
northern sections, they were most com- 
fortably installed. At night the bivouac 
tires of the outposts were plainly visible 
from the walls of Paris. Every railway 
on the main lines had a Prussian in- 
spector, who never thought of allowing 
a train to start until its passengers had 
been carefully examined. The difference 
in the running-time between Paris and 
London was increased by one hour de- 
voted to the Prussians, at St. Denis. The 
Germans kept this line open during the 
whole insurrection, aud there was never 
a time, uot even excepting the seven 



432 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



days' fight, when one could not freely 
have left the capital had ho wished to 
do so. The Parisians, and especially 
those possessing large fortunes, began to 
disappear. In less than a week after the 
shooting in the Rue de la Paix fifteen 
thousand persons left. Returning from 
the sea-coast through Creil, one day tow- 
ards the close of March, I found at that 
station about fifty thousand ladies and 
gentlemen, all in a state of excitement 
which seemed to border on lunacy. The 
only passenger on the train besides myself 
was a Queen's messenger, who got out 
at Creil and took the branch line to Ver- 
sailles. The refugees from Paris set up a 
shout when they saw my head at the win- 
dow of the railway carriage, and several 
gentlemen warned me not to return to the 
city, as there was fighting in every street. 
and the Terror was shortly to he estab- 
lished. These people were so thoroughly 
convinced of the truth of what they said 
that there was no reasoning with them. I 
reached the Northern railway station with- 
out adventure, and walked down to my 
apartments in the line des Petits Champs 
without seeing any evidence whatever 
of the insurrection, except the cannon 
grinning from the barricades in the Place 
Yendoine. Paris was for six weeks there- 
after, with the exception of an occasional 
cannonade and a pretty constant clatter 
of musketry at a distance, more tranquil 
that it usually is in spring and early 
summer. 

Presently the situation was clearly de- 
lined. Versailles had determined to 
besiege and take the rebels of the capi- 
tal at no matter what cost of blood and 
treasure. M. Thiers was in an angry 
mood, which was not at all softened by 
the decrees of the Commune against him 
and the unrooting of his house in the 
Place St. Georges. The new masters of 
Paris, the citizens, as they called them- 



selves, were quite free and easy in their 
communications with strangers, and 
many of the simple workmen, carrying 
guns, standing sentries in the Rue de la 
Paix and on the central boulevards, dis- 
closed what they thought were the plans- 
of the Commune to English and Ameri- 
can people, and possibly even to Prus- 
sians, without the slightest reserve. The- 
officers, however, in time forbade con- 
versation ; but the men only obeyed when 
the officers were in sight. The vioandi&res 
were not the least amusing of the odd 
features of the ( lommunal military forces. 
They were usually women of middle age, 
scarcely to be classed as handsome, clad 
in brown habits, and wearing bonnets 
which were a kind of compromise between 
a Phrygian cap and a Tain O'Shanter. 
They excited much sport during the first 
days of the Commune, before the young 
fashionables of the Jockey Club and the 
boulevards had become frightened, and 
when they mercilessly ridiculed every 
public demonstration of the Commune. 
The Communal troops generally car- 
ried little red flags stuck in the muzzles 
of their guns, when they were on t he- 
march : and many battalions had ban- 
ners with inscriptions signifying that 
they were the real men of order, etc. 
These troops suffered from lack of food T 
and many of them did not sleep in-doors. 
for a week together; but they were all 
convinced that Paris would win in the 
great struggle, and that the cities of the 
south would rally to her support. So, in 
the bright sunshiny days, they managed 
to subsist on bread and an occasional 
vegetable, and to get along without pay. 
The finances of the Commune were not 
at all flourishing, although they were 
administered, according to the testimony 
of so good an authority as the London 
Time*, with the most rigid and absolute 
honesty, even to the disbursing of a 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



433 



centime. Jourde, the delegate for the 
financial department, as the Communal 
phrase had it, was a man of genius for 
finance, and did his work with a swift- 
ness, and manifested an incorrupti- 
bility, in striking contrast with the 
conduct of the officials of the 
Empire who had preceded 
him. But had the success of 
the Commune been prolonged 
it is probable that the Social- 
ists, who had crept into the 
party, would have found 
Jourde too good a man for 
their purpose. 

At the outset of the insur- 
rection the National Guard 
from the workingmeu's quar- 
ters were all very sensitive of 
criticism upon their conduct, 
and not one of them showed 
any disposition to profit by 
the power which had been 
placed in his hands. The offi- 
cers would not allow the men 
to enter even the court-yards 
of the houses ; and it was an- 
nounced by printed proclama- 
tions, and in the orders of the 
day given to the troops, that 
any one detected in the theft 
of the smallest article from 
house or street would be shot. 
One evening when I went to 
the Kiosk for my newspapers. 
the inarchande was absent, 
and although the latest edi- 
tions of the papers were lying 
ready to the hand of the passers-by, I said 
to a soldier who was slouching beside the 
Kiosk, " You appear to be guarding the 
newspapers." — " Ah," said the soldier, 
" there is no occasion for alarm: there 
are no thieves here ; no one would touch 
the papers were they made of gold." 

The insurrectionary committee meet- 



ings at the II6tel de Ville were charac- 
terized by considerable decision and 
capacity for despatch of business. Assi, 
a workman of more than average ability, 
usually presided. He and one of the 
Generals were the men who saved the 




COMMUNIST TROOPS GOING TO THE FRONT. 



Commune from the dubious policy of at- 
tacking Versailles, — a course which might 
have resulted in bringing on civil war 
throughout France. 

On the night before Admiral Saisset 
left for Versailles. Paris was never more 
gay and beautiful. Thousands upon 
thousands of people thronged the streets. 



4.U 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



and the great avenues, flooded by the 
pure moonlight, echoed to the laughter 
and the shouts of the troops, who seemed 
more as if they were on a pleasure ex- 
cursion than engaged in a military occu- 
pation. But in some of the streets held 
by the insurgents, one heard the constant 
cry, " Snr In chauss&e, citoyen " (To the 
middle of the street, citizen); and he 
who did not get off from the sidewalk 
was sometimes aided into the street by the 
butt of a gun. TheCommune feared that 
Admiral Saisset's forces might attempt to 
occupy the principal points in the central 
quarter; so they had strong guards at 
all the important buildings. But when 
morning came, and they found that the 
government forces had retreated, the 
vigilance was relaxed. La Commune at 
once began to bluster and to boast. 

On the 26th of March elections were 
held, the Central Committee which had 
been the soul of the insurrection desiring 
to have its powers continued. These 
elections were held on Sunday, and one 
hundred and forty thousand votes were 
cast for the Communal body, and about 
sixty thousand votes lor the opposing 
faction. Among the elected were 
Flourens, Blanqui, Felix Pyat, and such 
extremists. It was rather amusing to 
observe, on this Sunday morning, the 
ostentation with which the Communists 
removed the cannon from the Place Ven- 
dome in accordance with their proclama- 
tion, stating that no citizen should 
complain that he had voted at the can- 
non's mouth. The Central Committee 
got its powers fully confirmed, and some 
of its more active members formed 
themselves into a sub-committee, in 
which the whole executive power of the 
Commune was subsequently concen- 
trated. 

Meantime, at Versailles, M. Thiers 
was preaching from the tribune that 



Monarchy was forever lost in France, 
and was telling even the Monarchists 
that they might conspire in vain. It 
was not until peace with Germany had 
been voted upon that M. Thiers made 
any definite declarations as to his con- 
version to Republicanism. For the 
Communists, he was, to the latest 
moment of the great struggle, a Mon- 
archist. They refused to believe in his 
professions of faith in the Republic, and 
it served their purpose to picture him as 
conspiring to firing back the old monarch- 
ical machinery. His vigorous action 
soon brought together, in the villages so 
recently evacuated by the Prussian con- 
queror, some eighty or ninety thousand 
men. Tlie bridge of boats at Sevres 
was cut by General Ducrot's order; ar- 
tillery was planted on the hills far and 
near. With revolution in Paris, in Mar- 
seilles, and m Toulouse, with hundreds 
of thousands of energetic men in Paris 
led by desperate, unwavering leaders, 
M. Thiers had a gigantic task before 
him. I lis courage does not appear to 
have weakened for an instant, and his 
coolness was the admiration of Europe. 

The fusillade of the Place Vendome 
was a kind of coup d'Etat. It was fol- 
lowed up on the 28th of March by the 
formal declaration of the Commune in 
front of the Hotel de Ville. The cere- 
mony was notspecially interesting. The 
members of the Communal Council got 
together on a platform in front of the 
great Henri IV. entrance to the magnifi- 
cent building, which was doomed to per- 
ish in the flames a few weeks later ; and 
there was a display of busts of the 
Republic crowned with Liberty-caps, and 
ornamented with red ribbons and flags. 
Salutes were fired from batteries of ar- 
tillery along the Seine; many speeches 
were made : and there was infinite 
drinking and shouting. The dates and 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



135 



phraseology of the old Revolution began 
to he employed. The Official Journal of 
the 28th of March published the follow- 
ing notice : "The citizens, members of the 
Commune of Paris, are called together 
to-day, Wednesday, the 8th germinal, 
at one o'clock exactly, 
at the Hdtel de Ville." 
Every smallest and least 
important notice was pre- 
ceded by the phrase : 
•• Commune de Paris. — 
Rep a blique Francaise. 
Liberty. Equality. Fra- 
ternity." 

The Central Commit- 
tee gave its powers into 
the hands of La Com- 
mune, which was a mere 
matter of form, designed 
to shield the personality 
of different members. 
" The proclamation." it 
said, "of the L'Oth of 
March has sanctioned 
the victorious Revolu- 
tion." It then went on 
to abuse the Versaillais 
as presumable Monarch- 
ists, and stated that the 
first acts of the new 
power would be a deci- 
sion as to the lowering 
of rents and the renew- 
al of commercial paper. 
These were measures in- 
tended to conciliate the 
middle class, which had 
been sorely distressed by 
the long business stag- 
nation consequent on the siege. The 
Commune abolished conscription, and 
decreed that no military force other 
than the National Guard could be created 
or introduced into Paris. All valid citi- 
zens were to be at once incorporated 
in the National Guard. 



No sooner was this published than I lie 
exodus began, and did not cease until 
nearly every Parisian of fortune who 
could get away had gone. The Com- 
munal authorities made a great show of 
preventing departures from Paris, but 




THIERS AND MACMAHON MEETING AT LONGCHAMPS 



they were powerless in the matter. The 
Commune struck a blow at the landlords 
as soon as it was firmly installed in 
power, by decreeing that no rent should 
be collected from tenants for the terms 
between October, 1870, and April, 1871 ; 
and that all the sums that had been paid 



43(j 



EUROTE IN STORM ASK CALM. 



for rent by tenants during those nine 
months should be credited to them on 
future terms. This took millions upon 
millions of francs out of the pockets of 
the house-owning class, and to this day 
the proprietaires cannot hear the Com- 
mune spoken of without getting into a 
towering passion forthwith. 

The effort of Paris to attain her auton- 
omy awakened a good deal of sympathy 
in the minds of the more intelligent of 
the property-holding classes; but this 
sympathy was not strong enough to in- 
duce the sympathizers to act openly with 
the Commune. Paris wanted, according 
to the Communists, to lay down an ulti- 
matum to thi' general government, de- 
manding a guarantee for the autonomy 
of the great, capital and for its recon- 
quered municipal authority. After the 
elections the barbers, tailors, shoe- 
makers, and bakers in the central quar- 
ters, who had all been a few days before 
Sery defenders of the law-and-order 
party, and loud in their denunciations of 
the assassins and the mob of convicts, 
became somewhat conservative, and 
showed a disposition to side with the 
powers that lie. The Commune had at 
one time almost succeeded in convincing 
the majority of the Parisians that the 
National Assembly at Versailles was de- 
termined to restore monarchy, and that 
to Paris had been confided the glorious 
mission of sustaining and definitely 
founding the Republic. 

Meantime business was at a stand-still, 
and money was scarce ; few shops were 
open. The Commune, from beginning 
to end of its brief career, aped all the 
tricks of the preceding governments; 
and so it had an illumination on the 
night that the Commune was declared. 
This was called the Fete of the Com- 
mune. The fete was meagre and of 



true Republican simplicity, — a few paper 
lanterns hung in the Place de la Concorde 
and in the Tuileries. The two trium- 
phal arches were brilliant with gas-jets. 
At the Hotel de Ville a line display was 
made. The National Guard and their 
wives and daughters paraded the princi- 
pal streets, singing revolutionary songs; 
and many of the men, despite the strict 
discipline to which they were supposed 
to lie subject, were too much devoted to 

Bacchus. Returning home at midnight 
from an inspection of these illuminations, 
1 was approaching a sentinel at the 
corner of the Rue Mont Thabor, and he 
halted me when 1 was certainly one hun- 
dred paces from him. " Passez "« 
large!" screamed the guardian of the 
Republic, in a voice which showed signs 
of the influence of absinthe. How to 
pass at any more respectful distance 
from (his exacting sentinel than the 
width of the street I knew not. I was 
allowed to advance within ten paces, 
when, in a drunken rage, he cried. 
•• Voulez~vous passer an large?" evi- 
dently thinking that I meant to disarm 
him. " Certainly," I said ; " which side, 
sentinel?" — " A votre gauche, alors" 
(To your left, then.) But when 1 started 
to the left, he raised his musket, and, 
pointing it rather unsteadily at me, said. 
"Will you keep at a distance?" — 
"Shall I not pass on this side?" — 
" Sacri nom de Dieu! Do you not know 
which is your left hand?" 

I begged his pardon for having vent- 
ured to judge for myself which was my 
left. hand, and was finally permitted to 
pass alive on the side which I previously 
supposed to be my right. Drunken sen- 
tinels were numerous enough in those 
days, and were a source of annoyance, 
as. in their cups, they were exacting and 
suspicious. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



437 



CHAPTER FORTY-SIX. 



Decrees of the Commune. — The First Important Battle. — Flourens Loses His Life. — Notes on Communal 
Journalism. — The Burning of the Guillotine. — Great Funerals. — An Artillery Duel. — An Aston- 
ishing Spectacle. 



TN the early days of April some of the 
more moderate of the Communists, 
among them Vermorel and Ranc, re- 
signed, believing that the movement had 
become too revolutionary and public to 
admit of further association with it. 
The}- did not mean by their resignations 
to imply that they despaired of leading a 
mob, but that they recognized the move- 
ment as indefinite in its aims, not hav- 
ing in view the foundation of any special 
government, either for Paris or France, 
but being merely a protest against king- 
ships, against the clerical reactionary 
party, and against what Mr. Carlyle 
called " clothes." 

In these first days of April too, the 
Commune published its famous decree, 
by which it impeached Thiers, Jules 
Favre, Picard, Dnfaure, and others who 
had been prominent in the work of na- 
tional defence, because, as the proclama- 
tion declared, " the men of the govern- 
ment of Versailles had ordered and 
begun a civil war, had attacked Paris, 
slain or wounded National Guards, sol- 
diers of the line, women and children." 
They decreed the confiscation of the 
goods and chattels of these personages, 
and it was not long after that M. Thiers' 
house was visited ; his art treasures, 
which were many and very costly, were 
carried off and deposited in the Louvre, 
aud his papers were tossed about by 
grimy hands. The decree of the 2d 
of April also announced the separation 



of Church and State, the suppression of 
the budget of public worship, and the 
seizure by the nation as national prop- 
erty, of all the houses and lands belong- 
ing to religious congregations. Ilowthe 
Commune of Paris managed to make its 
decrees national no oik- knew, and no 
one of the Communists endeavored to ex- 
plain. Most of the churches were closed, 
and in many cases, seals of the Commune 
were placed upon their doors. From 
time to time they were used for chilis, 
aud offensive and blasphemous language 
was heard in the pulpits. The violent 
hatred of the great masses of the sup- 
porters of the Commune for the clergy 
had been manifest from the beginning 
of the Commune, and increased in in- 
tensity until it culminated in the mas- 
sacre of the Archbishop and his col- 
leagues. 

On the 3d of April came the first im- 
portant battle in which the Communist 
troops were engaged in front of Paris. 
Flourens here lost his life ; Duval, an 
energetic Communist, was taken pris- 
oner, and shot ; and the Communist 
papers were filled with details of the 
ferocious conduct of the Versailles troops. 
The fact is, that the insurrectionists 
were treated, from first to last, with the 
greatest rigor ; and in the early battles 
of the insurrection, little quarter was 
given on either side. 

After the disestablishment of the 
Church bv the Commune, the insurrec- 



438 



EUROPE IN STORM AXP CALM. 



tionists took every occasion to show their 
contempt for religions names and relig- 
ious employments. One day an abbe 
applied to the Communal officers for 
permission to visit a prisoner in the Con- 
ciergerie. "Who are you?" said the 
Jack in Loots who was in authority. 
" I am a servant of God," was the 
answer. He was given a pass con- 
ceived thus : "Allow freely to pass Citi- 
zen , servant of a person called 

God." This partook of mouutebankery, 
and was significant of what was to come. 
All the Catholic institutions were visited 
and minutely inspected, and the authori- 
ties sought every pretext for their sup- 
pression. One superior of a well-known 
institution achieved a veritable triumph 
when visited by one hundred armed men. 
who persisted in searching his place, say- 
ing that enemies of the Republic were 

concealed therein, lie opened his doors 
freely, and took them through a long 
suite of looms, all of which were filled 
with wounded insurgents : and the would- 
be inspectors went away very much 
ashamed of themselves. 

The worst kind of journalism began 
tn flourish so soon as the Commune was 
fairly installed in otliee, and lasted until 
the close of the insurrection. The in- 
famous and scurrilous "Pr/v Duchene" 
was the most disgusting of these journals. 
It was a. low, blackguard publication, 
like the anonymous prints of Congrcve's 
time, and was, in many respects, an 
exact copy of its prototype of the old 
Revolution. It was filled with oaths and 
exclamations which bordered closely on 
revolting vulgarity ; and the comments 
of this "Pere Dicckene" were supposed 
to embody the official opinions of 
the Commune. " P&re Duchene" talked 
of hanging, burning, drawing and 
quartering the bourgeois ami the aristo- 
crats without compunction. The carica- 



tures in the comic papers devoted to the 
Commune were often extremely irrever- 
ent. In one, Jules Favre was represented 
as Judas, and the quotation from St. 
Matthew concerning the faithless kiss of 
the betrayer was applied to a big-headed 
Favre kissing an ugly-looking wench, 
in a red dress, supposed to represent 
the Republic. In another, Thiers was 
represented as an accomplished acrobat, 
upholding on his broad shoulders all the 
aspirants to royalty and the throne of 
France. 

Curious and impressive was the scene 
enacted on the horrible Place de la Ro- 
qni tte, where Troppmann's execution had 
occurred some time before. The Com- 
munists, in searching among the prisons, 
which they were very fond of in- 
specting, found pieces of seventeen 
guillotines, old and new, and therefore 
they sent forth hither and yon men to 
rattle on drums and announce that the 
aforesaid guillotines would be publicly 
burned on the Place of the Condemned. 
"Come and see, citizens, the promise 
of La Commune that a reign of terror 
shall not be reestablished, at least with 
guillotines, for it is so easy to be con- 
demned by them, once they are in good 
working order; within their fatal arms 
they are always seeking to enfold you. 
Let us annihilate the scarlet destroyers." 
And so blazing piles were heaped high, 
and thousands of people danced in joy 
around the fires in which perished the 
blood-stained machine under whose 
knife Orsiui died. The women were the 
most enthusiastic participants in this cer- 
emony of burning the guillotines, and 
they danced, marched, and howled about 
the flames for hours, evidently taking as 
much delight in it as they did in laboring 
on the ramparts, another of their favor- 
ite amusements, fortifying against those 
whom they were pleased to term the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



439 



" Prussians of Versailles." A common 
spectacle on the fortifications was a row 
of National Guards seated gravely smok- 
ing their pipes while the women were 
digging at the turf and the sods and 
piling them up on the ramparts. 

One day near the insurrectionist bar- 
ricades, on the Place Vendome, I dis- 
covered an acquaintance of mine, aged 
six years, industriously employed in 
rearing rival barricades with lots of pav- 
ing-stones, left where the 
street had been torn up. 
In the embrasure of these 
few stones he and his 
companions presently 
mounted a toy cannon, 
pointed at the defenders 
of La Commune. Asen- 
tinel looked curiously on ; 
bystanders smiled ; the 
child's hair blew about 
his forehead, fanned by 
the evening breeze, and 
his face took on a fero- 
cious aspect as he tugged 
at the heavy stones. 

The One Hundred and 
First Battalion of the in- 
surgents was quite fa- 
mous. It was composed of 
small, thin, and ignorant 
workmen from the sub- 
urban quarters, meanly and not quite uni- 
formly clad. Their weapons were of all 
shapes and sizes, and tosee them marching 
along one of the splendid boulevards one 
might have imagined that Jack Falstaff 
and his army had come to town. But 
they fought like demons, never missing a 
chance in the trenches before Paris. The 
battalion conducted itself well. It was 
the first battalion in the Place Venddme ; 
it captured two cannon ami a mitrailleuse 
at Chatillon from the Versailles troops, 
and wherever it appeared thereafter 



among the Communists it was received 
witli cheers. 

One morning the bill-boards of the 
Commune were placarded with the fol- 
lowing notice, dressed in deep mourning : 
'■'•Citizens: — La Commune of Paris invites 
you to attend the burial of our brethren 
assassinated by the enemies of the Re- 
public during the days of the 3d, 4th, 
and 5th of April. The meeting will 
be at the Hospital Beaujean, at two 




DEATH OF FLOURENS. 

o'clock; burial at the cemetery of Pere 
La Chaise." 

From curiosity or sympathy, thou- 
sands attended the funeral, and three 
immense hearses, with sixteen dead Na- 
tional Guards in each, moved slowly up 
the streets to the far-off cemetery that 
afternoon. I had seen the burial pag- 
eantry of a Marshal of the Empire, but 
it was not so impressive as this. Thou- 
sands of troops followed slowly with un- 
covered heads, and the armed escort, 
headed by muffled drums ami a number 



440 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of trumpeters playing mournful airs, 
met with marks of respectful sympathy 
everywhere. Each man wore an immor- 
telle, and this gave to the whole proces- 
sion the air of a vast parterre covered 
with blossoms. There were few noisy 
demonstrations. The occasional roar of 
the cannon reminded every one that there 
was no time for wasting tears or breath. 
As the head of the funeral procession 
reached the poinl opposite the Chaussde 

d'Antin , where there were many thousands 
of spectators massed together, another 
funeral procession, composed of a shabby 
hearse with a pine-wood coffin in it, fol- 
lowed by half a dozen humble people, came 
out from the Rue Louis le Grand, and 
crossed directly at right angles. Misery 
and splendor in burial ceremonial were 
never in more startling contrast than 
here, and a sol) of sympathy seemed to 
burst from the spectators in profound 
unison. The addresses at the cemetery 
were full of vindictive threats and allu- 
sions to the cowardly assassinations of 
the brothers in arms. The death of 
Flourens, which had been a great blow 
to the Commune, was more than once 
alluded to in a manner which showed 
that vengeance was intended. Next day 
I rode to the review which the Commu- 
nists had announced to take place Oil the 
Champ tie Mars, and, in common with 
thousands of other spectators, was com- 
fortably ensconcing myself on the sunny 
slope of the Trocadero, when my atten- 
tion was arrested by a tremendous can- 
nonading, which burstsuddenly upon our 
hearing from the direction of Fort Issy. 
The thousands of spectators turned their 
eves towards the fort, and it was evident 
to all that a great artillery duel was be- 
ginning. The Versailles troops had es- 
tablished their batteries on a plateau 
between Meudon and Issy, and were 
firing briskly. Rut the fort, which was 



entirely unarmed when I had visited it a 
week and a half before, now seemed 
magnificently provided with cannon, and 
vomited lire and smoke continuously. 
Over Chatillon little puffs constantly 
arising showed that the insurgents had 
a. battery there also, and were making 
the most of the defensive works which 
the Prussians had left behind them. 
Gradually the whole horizon beyond was 
enveloped in the smoke from batteries, 
ami the thunders of the artillery were 
distinctly audible for miles around. On 
the great plain below, that which, in 
1867, received upon its vast expanse the 
delegates of all the nations, several thou- 
sand men were manoeuvring. The sheen 
of their arms, the occasional faint 
echoes of martial music, borne to us on 
the breeze, gave us all the spirit of a 
review, while we were in the presence of 
an active battle. The whole space in 
front of the Kcole Militaire was occupied 
by regiments of National Guards, who 
manoeuvred with much precision. A brill- 
iant staff rode up and down commanding 
imperiously, but with our field-glasses we 
could discern that they cast timid glances 
in the direction of Issy, where the battle 
every moment gained in vigor. Its tre- 
mendous fusillade was showing its white 
line of smoke under the batteries of Issy, 
and the Versailles troops and the wa- 
vering response on the insurgents' side 
indicated that the fort was now in dan- 
ger. 

Suddenly we heard the sharp voice of 
the insurgents' batteries in the neighbor- 
hood of the Avenue de la Grande Armee, 
and hastened towards the ramparts at 
that point, where a gate opened into the 
Porte Maillot Here I was brought to 
a sharp halt by a sentinel, who assured 
me that I could go no farther ; and even 
the production of numerous Communistic 
passes was of only sufficient avail to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



441 



procure me a threat of immediate arrest 
if I ventured to mount the ramparts. I 
turned away, and proceeded in the direc- 
tion of the Triumphal Arch. On getting 
near this monument, whence I could 
have an unobstructed view of the Neuilly 
gate and as far as Courbevoie, on the 
long, straight avenue of Neuilly, which 
runs without the slightest curve or break 



now endeavoring to retake. This barri- 
cade was stoutly defended by the insur- 
gents, who were protected by batteries 
on all sides. 

In and around the Triumphal Arch, and 
half-way down the avenue of the Grand 
Army, in the direction of the fighting, 
was clustered, perched, stuffed, packed, 
and jammed together, a crowd of perhaps 




TIIE RUE PERRONET AT NEUILLY. 



until the hill shuts out the view beyond, 
I saw that a battle was engaged, and 
shells were beginning to fall unpleasantly 
near. Many exploded in the air, and 
each shell was said to have one hundred 
bullets in it. At the top of the hill just 
mentioned is a large tower, and half-way 
between this tower and the gate of the 
Paris fortifications was a huge barricade, 
which the Versailles troops had held the 
day before, had abandoned, and were 



thirty thousand people. Most of these 
were citizens of Paris, and from the upper 
classes. They were in carriages and 
dog-carts, mounted on omnibuses, and 
on the balconies and roofs of the sur- 
rounding houses. Men and women, 
elegantly dressed, joked and laughed 
over the struggles of the fighting men on 
the hills and plains below. It was like 
a Grand Prix day in the Boisde IJoulogue. 
It was impossible for a stranger to under- 



442 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



stand how these people of society looked 
with such evident unconcern at what 
seemed to be the beginning of :x sangui- 
nary civil war. The men cheered and 
the women waved their handkerchiefs 
whenever a shell burst, but for what 
reason they would have been puzzled to 
say. The foolishly frivolous and fashion- 
able class, which neither represented 
Paris nor France, was in full force on 
this occasion ; and once or twice the 
Communists, stalking about in the crowd, 
showed an inclination to strip these fine 
birds of their feathers. Numbers of car- 
riages filled with American ladies and 
gentlemen were grouped about the Tri- 
umphal Arch. Here and there people 
were so enthusiastic in their praise of the 
Communal troops as to call out adverse 
criticism from their aristocratic neighbors 
in the gathering. 

Now and then a little panic was pro- 
duced by the ambition of some shell, which 
overleaped the ranee of the previous 
ones, and which fell with a frightful 
crash, and not faraway. Every moment 
shells came up steadily in a little puff of 
white smoke, which was speedily illumi- 
nated by a Hash and then died away. 
Sometimes the line of battle in front of 
the gate, only a short half-mile from the 
Arch, would be seen to waver under the 
pressure of the fire of regular troops ; 
then the whole avenue would look like a 
furnace, with jets of flame escaping from 



immense clouds of smoke, for ten minutes 
at a time. Now and then one or two 
men would disappear under the crushing 
explosion of a shell ; then a tremendous 
musket-fire would break out from hedge 
and house and wall, directed at, the ap- 
proaching Versailles artillery-men, and 
the crowd regarded it as a glorious spec- 
tacle, and laughed, and ate bonbons, and 
went quietly home to dinner, lint it was 
astonished to learn that, an hour after it 
had left, shells were falling thickly on and 
around the Arch. 

The government troops had got Un- 
contested barricade again at considerable 
loss, and were now steadily approaching 
the gates. When I left shells were fall- 
ing by dozens in the rich and fashionable 
quarter, — the Versaillais not hesitating 
to bombard the capital, although they 
had called the Prussians Vandals because 
they had done the same thing. Many 
insurgents were coming back from the 
light, cross and bleeding, and elbowing 
citizens in no gentle spirit; fresh artil- 
lery trains driven by liners who had de- 
serted at the outbreak of the Commune, 
and the guns, manned by soldiers in 
all kinds of uniforms, rattled up through 
the Champs Elysees, and went towards 
the gates. With the glass we could see 
that Neuilly had been badly demolished ; 
houses had been riddled with shell, and 
many people were killed in the street. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



443 



CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. 

Pictures of the Commune. — General Cluseret. — The Hostages. — A Visit to the Communal Ministry of 
Public Instruction. — The Armistice. — Touching Incidents of the Fratricidal Struggle. 



DURING the whole of the month of 
April a vigorous but useless light 
was kept up between troops of the Com- 
mune and those of the regular govern- 
ment at Versailles. The battle on the 
road to Neuilly, described in the last 
chapter, was claimed by the Communal 
authorities as a victory, and the Com- 
mune issued a flaming despatch in which 
it said that " Bergeret himself" was at 
Neuilly. This " Bergeret himself" 
amused the Parisians who were not 
sympathetic with the Commune, and the 
poor fellow never heard the last of it. 
although lie was soon replaced as the 
delegate for war by Cluseret, who inau- 
gurated his campaign by posting up a 
proclamation to the people of Parts, in 
which he said that the Versailles troops 
were shooting the prisoners, killing the 
wounded, and firing upon ambulances. 
About this time the Parisians discovered 
that they were doomed to suffer a second 
bombardment, which seemed likely to 
prove much more serious than that to 
which they had been subjected by tiie 
Prussians. The bombardment of the 
siege cost Paris but only one hundred 
and ninety lives ; but that of the Ver- 
sailles troops was far more deadly, and 
appears to have been of no use whatso- 
ever in hastening the surrender of the 
capital. 

In these early days of April we went 
into the bombarded quarter every day to 
see the sights, and to bring back to the 
deserted boulevards the gossip from the 



front. There was at that time no pillage ; 
flic citizen guards were neither brutal 
nor impolite. Women were treated with 
genuine respect, and although a Belgian 
correspondent had telegraphed to his 
journal that the excitement had made 
every one ghastly and green with fear, 
and ready to gnaw his lingers with re- 
morse, such was not the case. Am- 
bulances were almost (lie only vehicles 
seen in the bombarded quarters. The 
red flag waved on the tops of all the 
buildings and most of the churches; 
barricades were going up right and left 
in the principal streets. Citizen Pascal 
Grousset, destined to become famous in 
connection with the Commune later on. 
was tlte head of the commission for the 
construction of barricades. Half-way 
up the Champs Elysees, the officers of 
battalions guarding (hat quarter had 
made a line of demarcation, beyond 
which only those citizens honored with 
passes were allowed to go. 

A visit to this quarter which I made 
on the Hth of April, may serve as typical 
to visits any day thereafter until the 
entry of the regular troops into Paris. 
All the side avenues radiating from the 
Arc deTriomphe were filled with soldiers ; 
guns were stacked in one street, and 
liners, who had deserted at the outbreak 
of the Commune, were tranquilly build- 
ing fires to boil their coffee, paying little 
attention to the shells which came every 
minute or two into their neighborhood. 
We were halted by an officer at the 



444 



EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM 



Arch, and this diminutive official pro- 
ceeded to examine our papers with much 
dignity, when a series of sharp hiss€s 
followed by a deafening crash caused 
the little Frenchman hurriedly to crumple 
up our passes, throw them into our 
carriage, and force our reluctant coach- 
man forward. The shell struck in the 
centre of the Avenue des Champs Elysees, 
sending its deadly fragments in all direc- 
tions. Then came a tremendous series 
of detonations, and the air was tilled 
with bullets, and the debris of what was 
called a mil raille box. From all sides 
came echoes, sounding like protests from 
thedepartingownersof the fine residences 
lining each side of the avenue. At the 
Ottoman Embassy we found numerous 
marks of shot and shell, and two people 
were killed at the very doors of the 
Embassy that morning. The younger 
soldiers were so excited that they jostled 
us right and left and made rather sharp 
comments on the curiosity-seekers. The 
men on guard were of the better class; 
some had been forced in ; others had 
volunteered, and were anxious to light. 
In the Hue de Chaillot we saw Mr. 
Washburue's carriage driving rapidly 
away, the old gentleman quietly reading 
the morning paper as he went his round 
of daily duties, which in variety and 
piquancy have never been equalled in 
the history of the American Legation 
in Paris. 

When the great light at the Porte 
St. Martin Theatre was at its height, 
when houses on either side of the 
street were completely wrecked, and 
a storm of shot and shell had raged for 
more than two bonis, I saw our Ameri- 
can minister quietly drive up to the 
barricade, and. stepping into the front 
rank of the regulars, take out his opera- 
glasses, survey as much of the situa- 
tion as was possible through the smoke. 



and then retire as coolly as if he were 
leaving his box at the opera. 

In a few moments we were standing 
directly in front of the Arch in the 
Avenue de la Grande Armee ; and here 
a soldier remarked that the Royalists, 
as the Versailles troops were called, 
were hard at work. Why they should 
have chosen to bombard the quarter in- 
habited almost exclusively by wealthy 
Parisians and foreigners this soldier was 
at a loss to discover, and we quite 
agreed with him that it would have 
been, from a Versailles point of view, 
more practical to shell Belleville and La 
Villette. When we came back to the 
Rue de Presbourg, a lady showed us in 
the upper chamber of a mansion the 
wreck of costly furniture, bric-d,-brac, 
Sevres china, and line paintings just 
caused by a shell from a Versailles 
battery. Near by, a fine villa, occupied 
by an American family, had been visited 
by so many shells that all the treasures 
in a beautiful art cabinet were demol- 
ished. The day previous to our visit in 
the direction of the Porte Maillot, while 
a poor woman \yas giving her soldier- 
husband a dinner she had brought him, 
a shell killed him and carried away part 
of the woman's face. Almost at the 
same time a sentinel was killed by the 
discharge from a gun hung over the 
shoulder of an orderly galloping by, 
the gun being touched by a fragment 
of shell, which embedded itself in the 
orderly's back. 

The curiosity of the Parisians caused 
many casualties ; but as soon as a 
wounded man was seen a group gathered 
about him, and, while they were gazing at 
him, the splinters from newly arriving 
shells made many victims among them. 
Out of two hundred wounded people 
taken to the hospital at the Palais de 
['Industrie, the attendant physicians said 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



445 



that hardly ten per cent, could survive. 
Nearly all these men were struck down 
by shells just ready to explode. The 
avenue leading to the Bois de Boulogne 
was empty and desolate enough. A 
few soldiers hung about the gate lead- 
ing iuto the wood, and a solitary sen- 
tinel on the ramparts was hugging his 
gun. 

At the American Legation there was 
no sign of life. A half-drunken old 
man, drawing an apple-cart, as he passed 
the door of the Legation had his patriot- 
ism awakened by the spectacle of ex- 
ploring strangers, and had just taken 
one of us by the collar for a Prussian, 
when he stumbled and fell ; and there 
was a terrific crash which nearly fright- 
ened him out of his senses. Picking 
himself up, he took his apple-cart and 
departed in haste for a safer neighbor- 
hood. It was a curious spectacle to see 
hundreds of ladies and gentlemen watch- 
ing the white smoke puffs of Valerien, 
and to see them retire gradually as the 
guuuers got their range, and as the shells 
came nearer and nearer. The children 
went on calmly playing hop-scotch in 
the streets, aud men and women sat 
in their doors waiting for events, aud 
gossiping about the wounded. No 
American lady who visited Paris during 
the Commune thought her morning com- 
plete without she had been driven out 
under Are and had seen some incident 
of the bombardment. The Communist 
officers were very fond of parading be- 
fore strangers, and usually made artful 
appeals to their sympathies. Dombrow- 
ski, and men of his type, made a good 
appearance, and their eloquence was 
sometimes quite convincing. 

One morning I was at the Ministry of 
War, engaged in conversation with Gen- 
eral Cluseret's secretary, when a chief 
of battalion entered, aud announced that 



his men were mutinous and no longei 
desired to march. " Disarm them, citi- 



zen ! " was the answer. 



But I cannot 



disarm them," he said. " They will be 
about the streets dying with hunger in a 
few days if I do that. You know there 
is no work, aud we cannot afford " — 
Here he was sternly interrupted, and 
informed that the Commune had no 
duties towards any man who would not 
fight to protect it, and that if the recal- 
citrant needed any charity, nfter they 
were disarmed, they might go to Ver- 
sailles to get it. The result was that 
the men did not carry out their intention 
to mutiny. Calhoun speaks somewhere 
of the cohesive force of plunder; but 
here it was the cohesive force of a com- 
mon misery which kept these men in the 
Communal movement. 

At this time the Communal insurrec- 
tion was respected and dignified ; but it 
was destined soon to degenerate iuto the 
broadest license, and the wildest social- 
ism, aud most vindictive carnage. The 
Conservative party, in its fright and in 
its anger, invented accounts of the exe- 
cution of priests aud the sacking of con- 
vents and churches which had never 
taken place. The Sacristan of Notre 
Dame even wrote to the Paris papers 
that his golden and silver vessels re- 
mained in the same receptacle where 
they had lain for years, and denied the 
story that the Communists had inquired 
for them. 

The famous decree of the Commune as 
to hostages was published on the 6th of 
April, and was provoked, it is said, by 
the fact that the Versailles troops gave 
no quarter, and that the hundreds of 
suspected persons who had beeu ar- 
rested and imprisoned in the gloomy 
garrison building at Versailles were 
treated with great harshness. Article 
Fifth of the Communal decree declared 



446 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



that any execution of a prisoner of war, 
or a person of the regular government of 
the ('(immune of Paris, should be in- 
stantly followed by those of a triple nuni- 
berof hostages, who should lie designated 
by 1< it. This was generally considered by 
the property-holding classes as the inau- 
guration of a new reign of terror. The 
arrests of the venerable Archbishop of 
Paris, the Cure' of the Madeleine, and 
various other of the numerous ecclesias- 
tics, and their imprisonment in the Con- 
ciergerie, constituted a fatal error, and 
the more intelligent of the Communists 
recognized from the first that it had 
placed them under the ban of public 
opinion in more than three-quarters of 
the communes in France. The Arch- 
liislio]i wrote a letter explaining his 
position ; that he was held as a hostage, 
and saying that, if the barbarities of 
which the Communists accused the Ver- 
saillais really existed, they were highly 
reprehensible. The Archbishop added 
that he wrote this sentence under no 
threat, but of his own free will, as :i 
good French citizen. 

A few days after the prelate's arrest 
a friend said to me, " I have been this 
morning to get my cure released. I told 
the Communists that they were keeping 
in prison a Republican and a much older 
revolutionist than themselves, and that I 
myself was prosecuted forroy liberal prin- 
ciples long before many of the leaders in 
this movementwere born. They informed 
me that the cuiv was kept merely as a 
hostage ; that they were compelled to use 
severe measures to diminish the arro- 
gance of the Versailles troops ; and that 
there were so many priests connected 
with conspiracies for the reestablishment 
of the Empire, or for a new monarchy, that 
they would doubtless be compelled to ar- 
rest them all. They denied, however, 
that any priest had been maltreated." 



General Cluseret, in his post as dele- 
gate for war, was the virtual head of 
the insurrection until his rigid devotion 
to discipline made him unpopular. 
One of his first announcements was that 
he did not intend to be disobeyed. lie 
signed one of his preliminary orders 
" Minister of War," on his own ac- 
count, and no one contradicted him, 
because he seemed competent to fulfil 
the duties of that position. His court- 
martials worked quickly, and had but 
little mercy. The General had lived 
poorly and fared hard for many years in 
pursuance of the cause of liberty. A 
consummate energy and a certain dash 
and bravery were his chief qualities. 
Not very long before the Empire came 
to grief, Cluseret was visited in his lodg- 
ings at Suresnes by some Imperial 
agents, who informed him that he was 
their prisoner. lie denied this soft im- 
peachment, and announced to them that 
he was a naturalized American citizen. 
He insisted upon being taken before Mr. 
Washburne, who accompanied him to 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 
there a species of convention was made 
by which Cluseret was allowed to re- 
main ten days on French soil. Before 
these had expired he had obtained an- 
other ten days of grace; and so he 
continued to prolong his residence until 
he had accomplished the revolutionary 
work for which he had reentered the coun- 
try. From the first he was determined 
not to deceive the Parisians as to what 
they might expect even if they achieved 
their aim of making Paris a free city. 
He warned them against all Socialistic 
nonsense, and assured the soldiers that 
they would have to go back to be simple 
workmen as before. Aided by a some- 
what remarkable chief of staff, he re- 
ceived hundreds of visitors daily, and 
despatched immense quantities of work. 



FA'ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



447 



One morning, as I went to his offices, I 
was accosted by a captain, who said to 
me in English, " I am from Pawtucket, 
and have come home just now to help." 
Another inquired timidly what the Ameri- 
cans really thought of the cause of 
Paris, and scowled as I explained to 
him the drift of opinion beyond the sea 
as to the great Communal insurrection. 

The list of unsuccessful amputations 
during these anxious days was enor- 
mous, considering the reputation for 
surgery that the French had theretofore 
maintained. The chief surgeon at the 
ambulance of the Palais de I'lndustrie 
told me that of one hundred and forty- 
five wounded brought to him in two 
days, all but five per cent, would die. 
The greut number of ambulances, as the 
extemporized hospitals were called, 
which had existed during the Prussian 
siege, had been dissolved or scattered 
right or left ; and so the Commune under- 
took to form ambulance companies, each 
containing twenty doctors or health 
officers, sixty medical students, ten wag- 
ons, and one hundred and twenty litter- 
carriers. Each company was divided 
into six squadrons, two of which must 
at any time be found in the ward to 
which they belonged ; and all these 
were to be subject to the orders of a 
medical commission sitting at the H6tel 
de Ville. The doctors received the pay 
of captains. The Communists accused 
the Versailles government of allowing 
its batteries to play upon the press am- 
bulance just inside the fortifications, a 
hospital in which five hundred seriously 
wounded men were lying. But each of 
the contesting forces claimed that the 
other did not respect the Geneva flag. 

The flotilla of gun-boats on the Seine 
and the Trocadero batteries were the 
sensations of mid-April. The eight 
gun-boats, which had done such great 



service against the Prussians, now had a 
red flag floating above them, kept steam 
constantly up, and were ready to go 
into any engagement where they could 
be useful. Their duty was to keep the 
Seine clear of any sudden invasion of 
Versailles troops. The batteries of the 
Trocadero had been throwing shell into 
Mont Valerien, a feat which few observ- 
ers thought they could accomplish from 
Trocadero, which in those days was a 
barren plateau with long flights of stone 
steps leading down to the Seine. The 
spectacle was remarkably tine. The 
whole horizon would be obscured by 
white smoke for a few moments, then 
the veil would arise, and the battered 
hulks of forts Issy and Montrouge would 
loom up and disappear like phantoms in 
the battle mist. The smoke from the 
batteries at the Porte Maillot and at 
these forts hung like a pall over the 
city one evening, and tile fusillade was 
so heavy and sustained that many peo- 
ple rushed out of their houses expecting 
to find Versailles troops in the Place de 
la Concorde. 

On the morning of the 23d of April I 
went to the Ministry of War, and, after 
some waiting, saw General Cluseret, 
with whom I had an interesting conver- 
sation. The General was dressed in the 
simplest manner, wearing an old Ameri- 
can Alpine hat, and a plain suit of trav- 
elling clothes, rather the worse for wear. 
The anteroom, as well as the grand inner 
hall where the officers of the Second 
Empire had so lately disported them- 
selves, was filled with troopers of all 
shapes, sizes, and conditions. One cav- 
alry man, covered with rami from head 
to foot, leaned wearily on his sword ami 
told the story of an attack ; another 
stroked his long yellow mustaches, aud 
growded because his men could not 
get any bread to eat. A group of 



448 



EUROPE AV STORM AND CALM. 



liners, one or two blood-stained and 
half-famished, clamored for the General, 
and insisted on seeing him. When the 
babel was at its height, Cluseret stalked 
out of his office, jostled the soldiers right 
and left, and exclaimed that he could 
not be bothered with these silly tales ; 
and each complainer shrank away. He 
went to an inner room, where the council 
of war was at once called, and one could 
sec him through the open door, deciding 
and discussing measures anxiously, but 
with a force of will which swept every- 
thing before it. Yet he admitted that 
there was plenty of cause for discour- 
agement, and that not even the most ex- 
traordinary animal magnetism could for 
any length of time overcome and cow 
so many thousands of unruly spirits as 
were to be found in the ranks of the 
Communists. 

Those officers and troopers who came 
and went in the war-office seemed will- 
ing enough to die for the Commune, if 
it were necessary. Among them were 
many old men, hard-featured, with sixty 
winters' snows on their heads; and two 
or three of these venerable rebels told 
me that they were volunteers. They 
were risking their heads for forty sous a 
day, said the bourgeois; but I believe 
that they were honest in motive, and, 
bad they been properly drilled, would 

have done wonders. 

Over the gale of the Ministry of War 
fluttered the red flag, with an inscription 
of the Commune of Paris on its folds, 
.lust within the portico, where the sun- 
light was merry on the gorgeous glass 
and gilding, a pretty cantiniere had 
taken off her shoes and stockings and 
was washing her feet after a long march. 
Every few minutes processions of small 
boys, from eleven to sixteen years of 
age, marched by, each flourishing a crim- 
son drapeau. The marines, who were de- 



serters from the Versailles army, were just 
going out to the front on this day. They 
were enthusiastic in their cries for the 
freedom of Paris. A little drummer- 
boy, eleven years old, marshalled them 
along, and a great crowd gathered to see 
them march past. Then came lumber- 
trains and requisition-wagons, badly 
mounted orderlies galloping to and fro, 
and slouching Mobiles, with their guns 
slung on their shoulders, men sullen in 
aspect, and not soldierly in mien. 

Armed with a letter of introduction I 
went on this same day to visit the citizen 
Minister of Public Instruction at the 
Hotel de Yille, which edifice I found so 
surrounded with barricades and sentinels 
that if seemed impossible to approach. 
At last, by tortuous ways, we got into the 
square around which so many revolu- 
tionary currents had eddied, and where 
Louis XL's hangmen had elevated their 
cross-tree and ladder so many times. 
At the entrance to the last barricade 
was a citizen more or less under the 
influence of drink, as Communist senti- 
nels were too often found. To this citi- 
zen I was compelled to read my letter 
of introduction twice, and to exhibit all 
the papers which I carried in my pock- 
ets, among them a telegram some two or 
three years old. The huge red seal, 
with the outlined woman supposed to 
represent the goddess of war sitting 
upon an outlined throne, with lays of 
glory about her head, finally satisfied 
this good man, and I passed up through 
a row of mitrailleuses and pieces of 
twelve, as the French called them, into 
the gate of the great Hotel de Ville. 
Some of the cannon were curiously pro- 
tected by heavy iron shields, so arranged 
as to shelter the artillery-men in the field, 
where there might otherwise be but little 
shelter. Two battalions came marching 
in behind me, a baud of music playing 



EUROPE IX STORM AX/> CALM 



44!> 



at the head of each, and determined 
looking officers scolding and fuming at 
their somewhat undisciplined men. Here 
and there a stray member of the Com- 
mune, distinguishable by his red scarf, 
was promenading with his arms crossed 
behind his back and his head bent for- 
ward as if lie were 
deciding upon the 
destinies of the 
capital. Little 
boys and gawky 
youths stood at a 
respectful dis- 



prison of the Conciergerie, I finally 
found the Instruction Commission in a 
room at the bottom of a lung corridor. 
Entering this room. 1 was greeted by a 
gentle, homely-clad hunchback, who an- 
nounced himself as the Citizen Magnet, 
and begged me to he seated. 

Citizen Magnet was knee-deep in 
papers of all kinds, lie was evidently 
delighted with his promotion to high 
office, and talked fluently about demands 
for succor from various educational in- 
stitutions, and the thought that lie had 
to give them. " Since the separation of 
Church and State, citizen." lie said, " and 




tance watching with bated breath the 
movements of the great man. A throng 
of youths, aged from fifteen to eighteen, 
was hastening in and out of the gates. 
These boys had come to get authorized 
for various services under the Commune. 
Making my way up the grand staircase, 
and passing the private office of Citizen 
Assi, who had but recently emerged 
from his disciplinary confinement in the 



EPISODE OF THE COMMUNE. - GEN- 
ERAL, LA CECILIA REVIEWING HIS 
TROOPS. 

the secularization of the schools, you 
can imagine that a vast affluence of 
communications has come to the com- 
mission. You can judge of that by the 
envelopes strewing the floor." There 
was something impressive, if also a little 
amusing, in the manner in which the old 
Communal functionary took for granted 
the permanent separation of the Church 
from the State, and the complete suc- 
cess of all the other revolutionary meas- 
ures. He seemed convinced that his 
reigu would last for his lifetime, al- 



450 



EUROPE IX STORM AM' CALM. 



though he had only to go to the balcony 
at the front of the great edifice and to 
listen to the harsh cracking of the mus- 
ketry and the boom of the cannon to 
convince him that the battle was not yet 
over. This deformed and amiable " min- 
ister " had been heard of before in 
Fiance, lie had published a map of 
the country, of which the tracts dis- 
tinguished by the ignorance of their 
inhabitants figured in black, ami those 
of relative intelligence were denoted by 
white. He took great pleasure in show- 
ing me these maps, and expressing his 
indignation at the folly of preceding 
governments in allowing ignorance so 
long to disfigure fair France. He spoke 
hopefully and sternly of his task, was 
anxious for information from abroad, 
and said he hoped soon to begin to ex- 
change reports with the great educa- 
tional commissions of the leading foreign 
capitals. I could not bring him to any 
expression of opinion as to the merits 
of his military colleagues. He put aside 
all my inquiries with dexterous and def- 
erential courtesy, and at last conducted 

me to tl Ilice of the Citizen Yaillant, 

who was charged with the highest du- 
ties connected with public instruction. 

Citizen Vaillant was not to be found. 
A grand review was in progress in front 
of the Hotel de Yille. Two field bat- 
talions, some three thousand men, hail 
been drawn up in line since mv entrance, 
and now stretched across the Place de 
Greve. From the long hall fronting on 
this place, — hall in which the Executive 
Commission and the Bureau of Infor- 
mation of the Commune hail established 

their antechambers, — 1 could see the re- 
view in progress and hear the crash of 
the drums. That which seemed an echo 
in the distance was in reality the dull 
music of the Versailles batteries playing 
vigorously against the Porte Maillot. 



On the right, as I entered the hall, I saw 
the line fresco representing Luletia seated 
on a throne, with her bow and spear and 
a gigantic shield, and with the world at 
her feet. How had this daughter of the 
morn and the child of smiles and sun- 
shine fallen in the last few eventful 
months ! 

The troops undergoing review looked 
fairly well. Bands not so full as those 
of the Empire, but patriotic and blatant, 
marched to the front of the grand 
entrance with a huge tambour-major 
preceding them. When the customary 
routine was finished, the Colonel drew 
up, took off his hat, and shouted '■'•Vive 
In Ligne!" — "Hurrah for the Regular 
Army!" — and I then perceived that 
there were many line soldiers in the 
ranks. These were the men whom, after 
the seven days' tight, General De Gal- 
liffet so mercilessly slew. The review 
continuing, the same Colonel called 
around him the numerous Captains and 
electrified them with a short speech. He 

finished with the 1 .1 cry of •• Forward 

to fight, and die for liberty, for work, for 
home, for La Commune!" and then, 
shaking hands with each officer, he raised 
his sword. All the other swords flashed 
in the air, an oath was taken, and the 
columns of men went wild with cheering. 

Presently appeared members of the 
Commune legislate e body, which seemed 
to have for that day suspended its 
session for the express purpose of aiding 
in the process of electrifying the troops. 
( hie venerable member, with long, flowing 
hair, made a fiery address, rushed into 
the ranks, shook corporals and rank and 
file by the hands, seemed likely to fall 
upon their necks and weep, had he not 
been pressed for time. The burden of 
evcrv subject was sacrifice of self for 
the great objects of freedom and the 
legal autonomy of Paris. At last the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



451 



battalions marched away from the barri- 
cades, and towards the Champs Elysees 
and the Porte Maillot. The soldiers, 
defiant with their glittering swords 
pressed tight against their right shoulders, 
seemed capable of courage and disci- 
pline. Among them were men of all 
sizes : one officer was six feet high, the 
next one four feet ; but the eyes of each 
were alight with the same fire. 

On the 25th of April two hundred 
and seventeen victims had been carried 
out of the avenue leading to the gate of 
Les Ternes, and every day brought fresh 
slaughter. An armistice had been ap- 
pointed, then postponed, because the 
Commune had not succeeded in deciding 
upon its future war-measures, and the 
Versailles government had not a fresh 
number of troops to put to the front. 
Hundreds of thousands of men and 
women had gone out to the gates pre- 
pared for a pilgrimage of curiosity to 
Neuilly during the cessation of hostili- 
ties, and now, turned back, they were 
muttering their discontent, and inspecting 
the great groups of statuary on the 
side of the Arc de Triomphe towards 
Neuilly, where shells had made great 
indentations and scratches. In the mid- 
dleof the grand group representing a war- 
rior defending his fireside was the scar 
of a shell, which had struck deeply in 
and nearly severed the head of the re- 
cumbent child from its body. Down at 
the gate thousands of wagons crammed 
with the furniture which had escaped 
bombardment choked the entrance. Hag- 
gard women and half-starved children 
carrying boxes on their backs wandered 
aimlessly about. At last an armistice 
was suddenly decided upon, and we all 
went out as far as it was possible to go, 
anxious to get some idea of the progress 
being made by our besiegers, and so to 
judge of the probable length of the 



siege. I went out by the Porte Bineau, 
and was soon in the wilderness of semi- 
ruined streets, through which I at last 
came into the town of Neuilly, whence 
I could look back to the Maillot gate, and 
see the flames slowly rising from a burn- 
ing house, out of the cellars of which 
had just come a number of aged old 
women who had been lying concealed 
so long that they could scarcely see in 
the daylight, and tumbled over the 
smallest objects, trembling at the least 
noise. 

At Neuilly the tales of misery and 
destruction were quite thrilling. At one 
house the mistress bad been rendered 
insane by the horrors of the bombard- 
ment, and was so violent that she was 
confined in the cellar for ten days, and 
no one dared to approach her except 
occasionally to throw her food. In the 
adjoining house a woman had died on 
the fourth day of the fight, and it was 
not until the tenth that the little funeral 
procession could pick its way among the 
skirmishes to the cemetery. Between 
two houses we saw half-a-dozen artillery 
horses in the last stage of putrefaction ; 
and as we came back there passed us in 
a cab all that was mortal of a man who 
had died in a Cellar for lack of food two 
or three days before. In a house on tho 
Avenue du Roule a horrible spectacle 
presented itself. There had been a fierce 
combat there a few days before, and four 
National Guards lay dead in a confused 
heap, their hands tightly clinched, and 
their faces blackened. One had lost both 
legs, and another an arm. The court- 
yard of the house was so strewn with 
ruins of the ceilings that I could not 
find any mark of the entrance of a shell. 
A woman in the throng of visitors 
found a collar of pearls in a porch, where 
a dead man was lying with his musket 
still loaded and his eyes turned towards 



452 



EUROPE IN STORM AN!) CALM 



the window, whence doubtless came the 
shot that killed him. 

The Communist leaders, in communi- 
cating details of the fighting, said that 
the troops of the Hue did not fight 
furiously, hut that the gendarmes and 
the old Imperial police of Paris, who 
were embodied in the Versailles army, 
went into their deadly work with an in- 
terest which was not feigned, and usually 
gave no quarter. 

Arriving at the lines of our besiegers, 
1 found the regular uniforms of the 
French army, but very little of tradi- 
tional French courtesy or grace. Those 
of us who approached the lines narrowly 
escaped arrest and confinement. A bar- 
ricade half-way up the avenue was Hanked 
with dozens of cannon, and the artillery- 
men were all at their post. Two women 
arrived at the line and tried to pass; 
their house, from which they had fled at 
the beginning of the fight, was only a 
short distance away. The sentinel re- 
fused passage. They discussed, and he 
expostulated; whereupon an officer 
stepped forward, took the gun from the 
sentinel's hands, forced the women back 
at the point of the bayonet, and said, 
" That is the way you must talk to 
them." Once an officer ordered a crowd 
of Parisians to move farther away or 
they would receive a fusillade. The 
howls of indignation at this statement 
were quite frantic, and the soldiers 
of the line, although amply protected 
by the guns of their own batteries, looked 
uneasy. 

One touching episode occurred during 
this day at Neuilly. Among the fragrant 
blossoms of the lilac bushes were the 
humble roofs of the Institution of the 
Holy Cross and the Hospital of Our Lady 
of the Seven Sorrows. Here, for fifteen 
days, in the back cellars, weak and dying 
children had been confined, while the 



shells rent open the upper stories. The 
good Sisters of Charity came out, now that 
this armistice permitted, and, blinking 
in the unaccustomed light, hastened to re- 
move the invalids to a safer place. Idiotic 
and scrofulous infants, blind and in- 
firm dwarfs, palsied and half-frenzied 
wretches of uncertain age, were placed 
in the vast furniture vans from Paris, 
and jolted away to the capital. More 
than one beclouded intellect, dimmed 
by suffering, imagined some dire mis- 
fortune in this removal, and protested 
energetically against it. .lust as the 
wagons were about to depart a sister 
came running breathlessly to announce 
that the aged director of the hospital 
would not leave his post. IP' was eighty- 
four years old, and faintly murmured in 
his cracked tones that lie would die in the 
house that he had founded. Put the old 
man, in spite of his devotion to duty, 
was carried away. Many of the Sisters 
of Charity objected to entering the capi- 
tal, because they did not wish to coun- 
tenance the Communal movement, which 
hail dared to offend Holy Church. 

The batteries of the Versailles troops 
were only two hundred yards from those 
of the Commune, and here the One 
Hundred and Fifteenth and Forty-fifth 
line regiments were stationed. The 
armistice was announced to finish at 
five o'clock, and it was half-past four 
before we had closed our tour of inspec- 
tion, and we were obliged to spur our 
horses merrily to regain the gates. The 
long, low, dark-gray walls of Paris, sur- 
rounded by their dee)) ditches, and the 
high-standing gate-ways, with their diffi- 
cult approaches, looked very impressive, 
and seemed almost impregnable. On 
the way back we noticed a thoroughly 
Gallic scene, ■ — a young man in the uni- 
form of the National Guard was playing 
"Mourir jiour la Patrie" upon a piano, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



453 



which the frightened owner had just 
moved into the street. Around the mu- 
sician stood a chorus of soldiers, singing 
with stentorian voices the lugubrious re- 
frain. Just theu began a panic, the 
Versailles troops probably firing blank 



discharges from their batteries to frighten 
away the crowds. The singers instantly 
dispersed, and the owner of the piano 
had it packed on the backs of some stout 
men, and so it passed through the Porte 
Maillot. 



4.34 EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT. 



to- 

atne 
111- 



Dombrowski in the Saddle. — The Foreign Chiefs of the Commi —General Clnseret. Hi* Arrest. — . 

Delcscluze. -A Despairing Revolutionist. -Rosscl. Bcrgcret. Tlie Dcelamatoiy Period. — The 
Combat at the Southern Forts. — A Hot Corner under Shell Fire. — The Women <>t' the i lommune. 

WITH Dombrowski in the saddle cause of Panslavism, and broke faith 
and invested with the authority with many of his old Polish friends. 
of commander of the armies of the In 1870 he lay in prison for a long 
Commune of Paris, the forward move- time in Paris, under the accusation of 
inent of the Versailles forces became forging Russian bank-notes, bul he was 
more and more difficult. Dombrowski acquitted of this charge, which was 
was one of the picturesque figures of probably the work of his political ene- 
Hie great insurrection, and risked his mies. During the Prussian siege he 
life freely in the cause for which he did good work for the French, and 
professed supreme devotion. He was after the capitulation he drifted 
a young Polish adventurer, who had wards the Commune, and finally becL. 
been admitted in 1848 to the Cadet a member of the famous Central Co 
Corps in St. Petersburg, and had stud- mittee. From that dignity to the posi- 
ted at the school of the Russian gen- tion of military commander of Paris 
eral staff, lie had seen some service it was but a step for a bold and am- 
in the Caucasus, and had been deco- bitious man like Dombrowski. He hail 

rated by the Russian gover cut for his head-quarters in the Place Yen- 

his services there. But while he was d&ma, where lie was always surrounded 

in garrison at Warsaw he became in- by a rather heterogeneous staff of 

volved in a i spiracy which preceded young and enthusiastic men, many of 

the insurrection of lsi;:;. He >vas whom 1 am convinced had absolutely 

suspected, denounced, arrested, and no sympathy with the socialistic wing 

imprisoned for a year, and lay in the of the Commune, but who were filled 

citadel as a prisoner while the wave with the faith that Paris, by winning 

of insurrection swept all around him. back her municipal liberties, would save 

He was sentenced to death, but his the Republic, and would raise up hun- 

sentence was commuted to exile io d reds of thousands of allies throughout 

Siberia. Henceforward his story was the country. To blame those generous 

as romantic as that of a hero of melo- and ardent men who willingly laid down 

drama. On the way to Siberia he their lives for the sake of principles 

escaped, returned boldly to St. Peters- which they believed thoroughly hon- 

burg, where he was concealed for a orable and patriotic, would be unwise 

time; then went to Switzerland, Ger- and unfair. There was more than one 

litativ, and China, arriving in Paris in who knew how to live through those 

1805. lie was next heard of in the nine weeks of the siege like a soldier 

Austro-Prussian war, espoused the and a gentleman, never condescending 



EUROTE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



455 



to any of the excesses in which the 
grosser spirits of the ( 'ommune indulged ; 
and those were the men who perished 
on the barricades, or in close action 
during the seven days' fight, disdaining 
subterfuges and disguises by which they 
might have saved their lives. 

Dombrowski replaced Bergeret, who 
had been much ridiculed lor his vanity 
and assumption, and who, on the whole, 
was a clever and conscientious worker 
in the cause which he thought right. 
His fatal mistake was made in the dis- 
astrous expedition against Versailles, 
where he got his men under the lire of 
Fort Valevien. During the fourteen days 
in which he was General-in-chief, lie 
probably made more mistakes than any 
military commander of modern times; 
but of his zeal and his capacity as an 
executive officer, although lie was of no 
use as a General, there was little doubt. 
When General Cluseret sent him to 
prison because he had refused to obey 
there was a great roar among the fol 
lowers of Bergeret ; and he himself wrote 
on the walls of his cell this prophecy, 
founded on his satiric insight into the 
nature of the half-educated and sus- 
picious master with whom the Communal 
chiefs were dealing : " Cluseret, I am 
waiting for you here." lie did not have 
long to wait, not more than a fortnight; 
for the 22d of April saw him at liberty, 
and Cluseret was soon in his place. The 
disgrace of Cluseret was decided upon 
the moment that the extremists of the 
Commune discovered his disapproval of 
their illiberal and oppressive measures. 
He even said of his friends, "They 
may shoot me, lint they cannot make me 
work against my conscience." At the 
time that Fort Issy was announced as 
likely to fall into the hands of the Ver- 
sailles troops, Genera] Cluseret had 
already been undermined 011 the pretext 



that he had compromised the situation 
by issuing decrees, which, although good 
in themselves, could not be carried out, 
and which engendered complaints from 
the officers of nearly fifty battalions. 
One officer, with whom I was personally 
acquainted, carried to the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Commune documents from 
forty-live battalions, decrying the Clu- 
seret rigivie, and demanding that the 
exacting General be displaced. The 
Communal journals did not hesitate to 
accuse him of neglect and incapacity; 
but most of the officers contented them- 
selves with criticising him as too ambi- 
tious. 

There was :i story current in the capi- 
tal, shortly after his arrest, that when 
the Communists were about to abandon 
the nearly ruined fort of Issy, and all 
had left save the one man who was to 
have tired the fuse which would have 
sprung a mine, Cluseret, with two hun- 
dred men, reoccupied the ramparts, and 
insisted on holding the position. It is 
certain that he never had any intention 
of delivering up the fort, as he appreci- 
ated how disastrous such a course would 
have been. I asked several officers who 
wen' directly concerned in his removal 
if there was any accusation of dishonesty 
against him, and received emphatically 
negative answers. Among the members 

of the Commune, however, there were 
those who said that he had offered to 
give up Paris for the sum of 8,000,000 
francs. These gossiping gentlemen 
had nothing on which to found these 
scandals except the great contempt 
which Cluseret usually manifested for 
them, and which, perhaps, led them to 
fancy that he was an enemy who had 
managed to get a. position in their midst. 
lie never sat with the members of the 
Commune at the Hotel de Ville. When 
the two members of the Communal 



45(5 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) I'ALM. 



Committee came to announce the dis- 
satisfaction with him, antl to hint at his 
deposition, he answered quietly that he 
had for some time expected it. 

Delescluze, who was the delegate for war 
of the ephemeral Commune, was a man 
of liner mould and of larger mind than 
must lit' his colleagues Journalist, pub- 
licist . and conspirator under the Empire ; 
conspirator again after the declaration 
of the Republic, in 1*70; imprisoned for 
the attempted insurrection of the 1st of 
( (ctoliiT, — he was already a notable figure 
at the beginning of theCommunal period. 
Like Cluseret ami Rossel, — the unfortu- 
nate young soldier who preceded him in 
the direction of the Commune's military 
affairs, — Delescluze had a profound con- 
tempt for the drunken helots who aired 
their socialistic theories on every possi- 
ble occasion. While lie was in favor of 
extremes, in the conduct of the conflict, 
he was perpetually afraid, lest by ex- 
Cesses the Commune should alienate 
from itself what little sympathy Europe 
still felt for it; and it is reported that 
when he heard of the execution of the 
Archbishop and the other hostages, his 
face became quite livid, a great sob of 
emotion rose in his throat, and he sank 
down in his seat, saying, " What a war! 
But we also will show that we know how 
to die." lie was as good as his word, 
and died with a composure and bravery 
worthy of an ancient stoic. 

The appointment of Rossel as the 
successor of Cluseret was a kind of con- 
cession to Cluseret's views as to rigid 
discipline. The new delegate for war 
was but twenty-seven years of age, and 
had graduated from the School of Appli- 
cation of Met/, only three or four years 
previously, c ing out of that school 

with the grade of lieutenant. Rossel, 
son of a French soldier of merit, and an 
English mother, who had brought him up 



in the Protestant, religion, was a pure- 
minded, austere, and vigorous young offi- 
cer, who would have been certain, had 
he not stepped aside into the thorny 
paths of insurrection, of winning high 
honors, possibly a marshal's staff, in the 
flench service. lie was a keen writer 
already, a brilliant strategist, and at- 
tracted to himself no little notice in 1869, 
when the last volume of the correspond- 
ence of Napoleon 1. was printed, bv 
demonstrating in a clever article, pub- 
lished in the Temps, that the books on 
strategy attributed to Napoleon were not 
and could not possibly have been written 
by him. At Metz, during the siege, 
Rossel was the determined enemy of Ba- 
zaine, whom he believed a traitor; and 
his hostility was so vigorous that he was 
imprisoned in one of the forts. But he 
escaped before the capitulation and, dis- 
guised as a peasant, traversed the Ger- 
man lines, and got to Belgium ; then, 
after a brief visit to his mother, in Lon- 
don, hastened to Tours to place himself 
at the disposal of the Government of 
National Defense. Gambetta knew and 
appreciated Rossel, who was an apostle 
of the doctrine that to treat for peace 
with the Germans was national dishonor. 
He went straight into the ranks of 
the Commune as soon as l he insurrec- 
tion broke out, and wrote a plain letter 
to the Minister of War in which he said 
that he placed himself without hesita- 
tion in the ranks of those who had not 
signed peace, and who did not count 
among them Generals culpable of capitu- 
lation, lie was Cluseret's chief of staff 
for some time, and presided at the court- 
martial where citizens who refused to 
do military duty for the Commune were. 
judged with great severity. Like the 
others before him he was destined to 
waste his energy and to spend his cour- 
age against the incurable negligence, 



efroi'k f.v srnirv and calm. 



457 



lack of discipline, and jealousies which 
honey-combed the insurrectionary forces ; 
and after having vainly endeavored to 
get together twelve or fifteen thousand 
men to lift the siege which the Versaillais 
had laid to Fort Issy. he gave up his 
office, ironically demanding at the close 
of his resignation the honor of a cell at 
Mazas. lie was taken at his word, and 
a committee of public safety sent a 
guard to arrest him. But lie succeeded 
in escaping from the custody of the 
ferocious committee and enticed his guar- 
dian to accompany him ; and it was not 
until the close of the seven days' fight 
that he was found by the government 
troops and taken with the rest of the mob 
to Versailles. No fairer and more prom- 
ising young life was sacrificed at the 
posts of execution on the bloody field 
of Satory than that of Rossel. His 
broken career has a pathetic interest for 
all who admire even the first indications 
of military genius. Rossel fell into 
the trap which was fatal to so many 
noble and gifted men. He believed that 
the Communal effort was practicable, 
that it was honest, and that there was 
really need for combating the govern- 
ment which had installed itself at Ver- 
sailles, and which, as he and so many 
others thought, would reestablish a Mon- 
archy rather than declare a Republic. 

Bergeret, Cluseret, Rossel, Deles- 
cluze, Dombrowski and his Poles, La 
Cecilia, and a few showy officers, — ■ 
these were the men who were expected 
by the incompetent and intolerant "Cen- 
tral Committee " of the Commune to or- 
ganize, with the rebellious National 
Guard, the permanent defense of Paris 
against a compact and angry army as- 
sembled at Versailles under the com- 
mand of Marshal MacMahon, with such 
men as Ladmirault, De Cissey, La 
Cretelle, Vinoy, Douay, and Clinchant. 



It is wonderful, when one looks back 
upon the resistance of the Commune, 
and the harum-scarum fashion in 
which it was conducted, despite the in- 
disputable talent occasionally shown in 
it, that it should have endured so long 
as it did. In the train of Dombrowski 
was a group of four young men named 
Okolowicz, born in France, of Polish 
parents, and all energetic and capable 
officers. 

During the last hall' of April the 
Commune was in its declamatory period. 
It issued its famous declaration to the 
French people, in which it claimed that 
the Commune had the right to form and 
determine the aspirations and the voice 
of the populations of Paris ; that at this 
time, as on so many previous occasions, 
Paris was toiling and suffering for the 
whole of France, and preparing, by her 
combats and sacrifices, the intellectual, 
moral, administrative, and economical 
regeneration of the nation. The Com- 
munists denied that Paris was seeking 
the destruction of French unity, but that 
it wanted political unity, the voluntary 
association of all, local initiative, the 
free and spontaneous cooperation of all 
individual energies with the common 
object of the well-being, liberty, and 
security of all. The Communal Revo- 
lution inaugurated a new era in politics ; 
was the end of the old official and cleri- 
cal world, of military supremacy and 
bureaucracy, of jobbing in monopolies 
and privileges, to which the proletariat 
owed its slavery and the country its mis- 
fortunes. " As for ourselves, citizens 
of Paris," the proclamation concluded, 
" we have a mission to accomplish, a 
modern revolution, the greatest and most 
fruitful of all which have illuminated 
history." 

To this Versailles replied with a cry 
of scorn and indignation, and with the 



4. r ).s 



EUROPE TN STORM AND CAl \I. 



stern announcement that no parley could 
be held with rebels and deserters. "The 
movemenl which has broken forth in 
Paris," said the Versailles proclamation, 
•• Ikis in it no coherent idea. It is born 
of a sterile hatred against social order. 
It has the fury of destruction for the 
sake of destruction, a certain savage 
spirit, the gratification of a desire to 
live without restraint and without law. 
The word ' Commune ' signifies noth- 
ing else. It is only the expression of 
ill-regulated instincts, refractory pas- 
sions, which fall upon the secular com- 
munity of France as upon an obstacle 
to their accomplishment." 

There is as much exaggeration in the 
statement of Versailles as in the state- 
ment of Paris. It is, perhaps, the exact 
truth to say that the Commune arose out 
<if a mutual misunderstanding. That 
the men who originally rallied to the 
movement were actuated by base motives 
is untrue. The Commune began as an 
honorable although a misguided protest 
against kingship, and against the usurpa- 
tion < if authority over the city by the State. 
It gravitated speedily to the condition 
of a vast and dangerous riot, nowhere 
directed or controlled by a master hand. 
Then crept in the serpent of socialism, 
the demons of drunkenness, lust, and 
revenge; and all the line theories and 
noble aims of the original protesters, 
the extremists, who. like Delescluze 
and Milliere and Klonrens, had been 
watching for more than a year for an 
occasion to take power into their own 
hands, were swept away in the black 
smoke of the (lames which burned the 
Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville. 

With the first days of May the combat 
at the southern forts had been daily in- 
creasing in vigor. The diapason of the 
guns sometimes thrilled the whole city. 
With early May had come the warm, 



sweet south wind, more suggestive of 
Hyeres and Genoa than of northern 
l'aris; lint on this wind each morning 
were home the echoes of the booming 
cannon. From Trocadero, or from the 
Point du Jour, on the circular railway, we 
could see tierce combats engaged in be- 
tween the three |\>rts standing out ill 
bold relief, and the Versailles batteries 
so high above them that the gunners had 
little trouble in dropping their shells into 
the I'oi Illicit ions. 

Those of the National Guards who 
kept up their discipline seemed inclined 
to sell their lives dearly. Thev had 
twice besieged Fort Issy and inflicted 
heavy losses on the Versailles troops. 
Every step, every successive line of 
trenches, might he said to have been 
traced in blood. Hand-to-hand combats 
were frequent. They grew out of the 
reconnaissances which sergeants of com- 
panies on either side were constantly 
making, and which often brought on a 
general action. Both armies had trenches 
in front of Issy, positions which were 
very hazardous. Now and then the Fed- 
erals, as the Communists were always 
called, would sally forth, and at great 
loss attempt to dislodge the Versailles 
troops, amply covered by their batteries. 
On one occasion the National Guards, 
unable to remain quiet under the terrible 
rain of shells from the batteries sur- 
rounding Issy, sallied out towards the 
chdteciu of the same name. and. assisted 
by a feeble lire from the battered for- 
tress, chased, at thepointof the bayonet, 
the Thirty-fifth and Forty-second line 
regiments, but left the ground strewn 
with their dead, lint when the lire from 
the fort failed, the line regiments re- 
turned to the charge, and in the mMSe 
which ensued took three hundred of the 
National Guards prisoners, and killed 
most of them in the excitement of the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



45t> 



prise. Among those taken many were 
clad in the uniform of the regular army, 
and those gentlemen passed out of life 
at the end of a Versailles gun-barrel. 

On this same day the Clamart rail- 
way station — an important position for 
the besiegers of Issy 
— was carried by as- 
sault by the Ver- 
saillais. This was 



making about three hundred prisoners. 
A Versailles paper about this time an- 
nounced that it was probable that the 
garrison of the Fort Issy would be ac- 
corded no quarter when it fell into the 
hands of the regular troops. 

While this combat was in progress at 
Fort Issy, I was visiting the right wing 
of the insurgents' line of defense, where 
some of the heaviest lighting took place 
for a fortnight after the taking of 
Asnieres by the Versaillais. A storm of 
shot and shell was hurled at them from 
Levallois, a little town only a short dis- 
tance from the walls of Paris. 

In Levallois the commandant 

i 

of this section had his head- 







TERRACE OF MKUDON OCCUPIED BY VERSAILLES TROOPS. 



early in the morning, before sunrise, and quarters; and here, also, was the Gen- 
was intended for a surprise; but the cral Okolowicz, one of the brothers 
commander found the insurrectionists as mentioned elsewhere. At this head- 
vigilant as himself. The Twenty-second (mailers I found an aide-de-camp of 
battalion of Chasseurs-&-pied, although General Dombrowski, who had been 
subjected to great loss, drove out the detailed to command at this end of the 
National Guards, inflicting on them a line. He was a fair type of many of the 
loss of two hundred and sixty, and defenders in the service of the Commune, 



4(i() 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



a handsome, athletic Pole, oner merchant 
of artificial dowers on the boulevard, but 

since the riots of 1870 interested in 
politics. !!«• had fled some years before 
from Russia, where he had been com- 
pelled t<> serve in the army, had fought 
eighteen months in the l'olish insurrec- 
tion, anil had spent two years in an 
Austrian prison as a convict, with a ball 
and chain attached to one of his leys. 
He was a brave soldier and a rapid and 
decisive thinker. The Commandant of 
the place looked more like a stalwart 
backwoodsman from Manitoba than like 
a Frenchman. lie was six feet two, 
wore superb florid mustaches and 
beard, and had a hearty, unaffected 
manner which was quite winning. The 
head-quarters was a small stone house, 
quite within the fire-line, so that shells 
came constantly screaming above it, or 
fa lline; with ominous crash close beside 
it. Here the Commandant had with him 
his wife and child, — the wife a noble- 
looking woman, who sat calmly when the 
shriek of the shells was plainly heard, 
and who, perhaps, had perfect faith in 
her husband's jesting assertion that the 
1 se was iron-clad. Every few mo- 
ments the door of this house was swung 
open by sonic soldier or under-officer, 
who came to report or complain. Every 
half-hour a battalion arrived in front of 
the house, coming cheerily up from its 
post at some other point on the line, the 
men singing the Marseillaise and other 
revolutionary songs. 

The Commandant invited me to break- 
fast, and just as we were trying for the 
fourth or fifth time to sit down to table, 
two gigantic artillery-men, grimy with 
powder and smoke, burst into the room. 
"Commandant," said tin' grimier of the 
two, " we see nun on the top of a house 
just across the river, and they are spy- 
ing us out." The commandant betook 



himself to his map, found out whore said 
house was, and gave the gunners instruc- 
tions to burn it. The Communists nad 
been using petroleum bombs for some 
time, but: had not found them very suc- 
cessful. They claimed that the Versailles 
batteries had. b\ means of these bombs, 
set numerous houses near the Ternes 
gate of Paris on lire. But the most in- 
telligent of the staff-officers assured me 
that in experimenting on a small house 
across the river, he observed that it was 
only after the nineteenth shell had been 
thrown that the conflagration was 
started. All the officers at this point 
were badly mounted, and few were 
decently equipped. Their complete faith 
in their final success was quite pathetic. 
They ad estimated the Versailles forces 
as much smaller than their own. The 
commandant de place at this point told 
me he thought the safety of the Com- 
mune depended cm the reorganization of 
the National ( iuard. 

Among the most impressive examples 
of devotion which I saw at. Levallois 
was that of a young peasant woman of 
twenty-two or twenty-three who had 
been night and day attending to the 
wounded on the river line at imminent 
risk of her own life. As she came in to 
head-quarters all the officers rose and 
greeted her with stalely courtesy. She 
was faint with hunger and exposure, 
and, when she sat down beside the Com- 
mandant's wife, grew dizzy and turned 
quite pale. She was well cared for, 
and the commandant himself cooked her 
breakfast. For two weeks, the officer 
said, she had found time to eat only one 
meal a day; and it is only when she is 
starved out, said one, that she comes 
up to head-quarters. She gently dis- 
claimed all honor for her fidelity. " I 
am not the only one willing to help," 
she said. "There are fifty of us in 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



4(11 



all, and we don't mind a little rough- cry raised by the Communists that they 

ing it." had been fired on by tin- citizens in 

From this time forward the days were Paris. I heard one artillery-man say so 

full of alarms. On the Sunday evening to his officer, who at once gave orders to 

after my visit to Levallois the spectacle destroy any house whence a shot should 



of the bombardment was grand beyond 
description. The fire way from the 
batteries at Point du Jour could lie 
seen, — a fire line flashing death and 
destruction at the southern forts and 
at the gate of the Ternes. The bombs 
fell like hail ; one conflagration lit up the 
whole section of Paris behind the Tri- 
umphal Arch, and so 
increased in intensity 
that the spectators 
at a distance fancied 
the regular troops 
had entered and were 
tiring the deserted 
quarters. The Com- 
munist soldiers ran 
howling through the 
streets, anxious to 
report themselves. 
almost despite or- 
ders, at the scene of 
the struggle. One 
brave I remember 
distinctly. He had 
partaken somewhat 
copiously of the juice 
of the grape, and as 
he made his way 
through the dense 
crowds would stop 
from time to time to invoke an imagi- 
nary person, whom he fancied was ex- 
postulating against his departure for the 
scene of battle. ' ; But it is my duty to 
go." he would cry ; and at last he 
tumbled quite helpless into a ditch by 



come. 

The Commune was not happy in its 
external relations, which were of course 




COMMUNIST FUNERAL AT NIGHT. 



mainly with the Prussians, and in which 
M. Pascal Grousset, quondam journal- 
ist, played a prominent part. Each 
time a communication was made to the 
Prussian commander by an individual 
with a red scarf over his shoulder, the 
the curb, and, supinely heroic, listened individual was severely snubbed. The 
with drunken gravity to the cannonading. Commune had a singular confidence in 
One formidable feature of this alarm the forbearance of the Germans, and 
on Sunday night in question was the from the first prophesied that they 



462 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



would not attempt to assi.st the army at 
Versailles even were Thiers driven to 
extremes. 

In those days it became evident that 
an attempt would be made at a great 
culminating catastrophe should the Com- 
mune lose its battles and either the 
troops of the government or of Germany 
attempt to enter the city. All the 
houses in the vicinity of the barricades 
of defense inside the capital had their 
windows pasted over with the long slips of 
paper used to keep the glass from break- 
ing when a great explosion is expected. 
It was reported that certain sewers had 
powder trains lain in them, and the 
leaders of the Commune had sworn to 
blow these sewers up rather than to 



yield their positions. As to surrender, 
they laughed such an idea to scorn. 
" What !" said a French officer, who was 
one of Dombrowski's staff, when 1 asked 
him if surrender might not be the end. 
"Surrender? Never! 1 am sentenced 
to death twice. I can die onby once, 
and I will sacrifice all the lives neces- 
sary to preserve my own and to make 
the movement succeed. This uniform," 
and he pointed to the dress of a line 
officer, which he still wore, — " this uni- 
form condemns me to death, and I will 
not be caught, — and I will not run away 
either." 

Saying this, he tossed off a glass of 
champagne, in which he toasted the suc- 
cess of the Commune. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



463 



CHAPTER FORTY-NINE. 



The Commune Suppresses the Conservative Journals. — Insincere Professions of Liberalism. — The Pere 
Duchene. — The Unroofing of M. Thiers's ll<mse. — The Communistic I<!« :il of Society. — 
Invasion of the Convents. — Reminiscences of Auber the Composer. His Death. — The Fall of the 
Vemlome Column. — The Communists Rejoice over the Wreck of Imperial Splendor. — Measures 
against Social Vices. 



THE world lost confidence in the lib- 
eral professions of the Commune. 
As soon as the two mad measures of 
suppression of all the conservative 
journals in Paris and the absolute nega- 
tion of the liberty of conscience were 
enforced, the Communists undertook to 
invest with a certain justice even the 
most illiberal of their decrees, and in 
suppressing half-a-dozen leading news- 
papers towards the middle of April, it 
announced that this was done because it 
was impossible to tolerate in besieged 
Paris journals which openly advocated 
civil war and which gave military infor- 
mation to the enemy, as well as propa- 
gated calumny against the defenders of 
the Republic. There is an amusing per- 
version of the truth in this statement. 
and a coolness in the remarks about 
civil war which has rarely been equalled 
in degree. That the Communists thought 
they were defenders of the Republic may 
be true, but that they were ignorant that 
they themselves had provoked the civil 
war which they appeared to deplore, 
cannot be credited. 

With the suspension of all the con- 
servative journals with the exception of 
the Slide and the Veriti, the sensational 
journals had full scope for their pe- 
culiar verbosity. Paris Free and the 
< 'nun a a ne were the two noteworthy 
papers which were most sought for by 
the adherents of the Commune. The 



former paper devoted a great part of its 
space 1<> printing lists of the political 
spies wdio had been employed under the 
second Empire ; and it is not very flat- 
tering to the French character to note 
that great numbers of denunciations 
appeared in these papers, and were evi- 
dently forwarded to the editor in the 
hope that under the exceptional circum- 
stances acts of private vengeance might 
be consummated. The printing of the 
alphabetical list of the spies was a line 
stroke of the vindictive Communists. 
Naturally, the chief of the political 
police under the Empire had kept every 
letter of application for the degrading 
positions ; and these letters, now brought 
to light, condemned to obloquy many a. 
man and woman who had before been 
counted respectable. The applicants 
were usually people in reduced circum- 
stances, ladies and gentlemen who had 
no resources and few hopes of any ; 
and in most cases persons whose ante- 
cedents were not entirely satisfactory. 
The journal called the Commune en- 
lightened us witli the history of the 
Black Cabinet in the Post Office, where 
the Imperial spies used to keep them- 
selves informed by opening private cor- 
respondence Of all communications be- 
tween important persons, when they 
thought it necessary. The Communal 
government also got out. at great expense, 
all the correspondence of the government 



4(14 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

of the " Fourth of September," as it was M. Rochefort's paper seemed to have 
called ; and the weekly instalments, sold dropped entirely < >ut of notice. The dis- 
for a son each, had an enormous circula- gusting little Pere Duchene, filled with 
tion. This, with the publication of the filthy and unquotable comments on the 
correspondence of the Imperial family, political situation, had a circulation of 
gave those of the Communists who had ninety thousand copies daily. This join- 
any leisure plenty of reading. The nal was entirely written by one man, who 
Estafette was the title of a newspaper pocketed about 3,000franesof clear profit 
which had an immense circulation among daily. None of the Parisian journals 
the lower classes. It was a hall-sheet, were allowed by the Communists to pass 
retailed for a son, with spaces between the fortifications; persons carrying them 
its spicy paragraphs filled with readily wex'e arrested, and were likely to be thrust 
executed caricatures of the men of the into a filthy jail, where they might have, 
moment. The only comic journal which as in the old Revolution, been confounded 
nourished under the Commune was with the mass of the condemned and been 
the Grrelot, which visited upon both sent off to be shot. The official journal, 
contending parties its satiric criticism, which the Commune thought it necessary 
In one of the numbers M. Thiers, attired to have in imitation of previous govern- 
as an old lady, was furiously apostro- meiits. contained nothing remarkable 
phizing a tiny child labelled Paris, save the Communal decrees, devoted to 
Maman Thiers : •• What in the name of upsetting everything that existed, and a 
Heaven do you want?" Little Paris: most singular feuilleton, in which a North 
"I want the moon."" And Little Paris American Indian did a vast amount of 
was depicted as regarding the reflection scalping, and declaimed in the fashion 
of the moon in a pail of water. of the Revolutionary orators of the time 

This was looked on as a Versailles of Danton and Robespierre. 
view of the situation : and the Column- Communist papers each had their an- 
nists doubtless notified the editor of the ecdote of Dombrowski's bravery. One 
Grelot that he would be under surveil- day. while making his way towards Issy, 
lance. In another caricature in the same we were fold, and being accompanied 
journal Citizen Courbet, the celebrated by only fourteen men, he suddenly heard 
painter, was represented as holding a the Qui vice of a Versailles sentinel. 
levee, at which all the bronze statues of His men turned pale with fright, and so 
Paris were in attendance, having come faltered that they were all taken pris- 
down from their respective pedestals to oners. But Dombrowski boldly ad- 
beg him to save them. Courbet was also vaneed, and said. ••Versailles;" and 
depicted as having already taken un- when required to give the countersign 
der his protection the Yendoine column, he rushed upon the sentinel, made him a 
Another comic journal of lesser impor- prisoner, dealing him a violent blow over 
tance depicted M.Thiers as an owl sitting his head with his own gun. and brought 
quietly on a tree labelled '• Restoration." him away before the little hand of chas- 
A flood of light from the rising sun of setws, lying near at hand, discovered 
the Commune was poured upon the owl's that thev might have captured the leader 
face, and France, a rosy young woman, of the Communists' military forces. The 
was looking at the bird and making scorn- truth w:is that Dombrowski had been 
fill remarks. spared by shot and shell in places where 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



465 



it seemed that no living man could con- 
tinue to exist. His soldiers imagined 
him possessed of a charmed life. All 
the Polish officers depended much upon 
the French love of entrain for success. 
General Okolowicz never went into a 
dangerous place without crying to his 
men, " Who loves me follows me ; " ami 
wherever his voice was heard there were 
men to respond to his call. 

The unrooting of M. Thiers's mansion 
in the Place St. Georges, in obedience 
to the spiteful decree of the Commune, 
was one of the silliest episodes of the 
great insurrection. The slouching sol- 
diers who were engaged in it were half 
ashamed of the work, and one or two of 
them said so to those of us wdio went 
to witness the operation. The razing of 
the house to the ground was never com- 
pleted ; and M. Thiers probably con- 
sidered himself amply revenged upon 
Rochefort, — a chance remark by whom 
in the Marseillaise was the origin of this 
Communal measure, — when he saw the 
popular pamphleteer arrested at Meaux, 
dragged through the military prisons, 
and, after a hasty trial, sent off across 
the seas to the other end of the world . 

If it be true that the first impulse was 
given to the insurrection by the mys- 
terious International Society, it is not 
strange that one of the first blows struck 
by the triumphant faction was at the 
established Church. But, whatever in- 
telligence may have prevailed when the 
first measures were dictated, the suc- 
ceeding ones were characterized by noth- 
ing save a blind fury. Hundreds of 
thousands of the working people of the 
capital were, and still are, rebellious 
against the authority of the Church ; and 
it is no exaggeration to say that scores 
of thousands utterly repel the doctrines 
of Catholicism and profess a kind of 
materialism which they would be puzzled 



to define. They had a vague remem- 
brance of the persecution of the Church in 
the old Revolution, and the confiscation 
of the fat lands belonging to abbeys and 
monasteries. They recognized, with 
the unerring instinct of the people, that 
the Church was one of the strongest 
pillars of monarchy; and they directed 
against it all the energy of their hatred. 
They closed twenty-six of the principal 
churches of Paris within a fortnight, and 
put the seals of the Commune upon their 
doors. Some of these churches were 
reopened for the meetings of Commu- 
nistic clubs, as all popular assemblies 
were called. The priests who dared to 
protest were imprisoned, and the spolia- 
tion of some of the religious ediiices 
was boldly undertaken. The academi- 
cian Maxime Ducamp, whose account of 
the Commune is not entirely to be relied 
upon, because he represents the most 
violent and prejudiced section of the 
bourgeoisie, or middle class, nevertheless 
has a fine faculty for putting his finger 
upon the weak points of the Commune. 
He says, in his criticisms on the attempts 
against liberty of conscience in the in- 
surrection : "Those men who neither 
knew how to write out a passport or a 
simple order, without asking for advice, 
needed no counsel when it came to at- 
tacking the Church. There they had 
nothing to do but to overturn, and the}' 
excelled at this work. To close churches 
to worship, and to open them to the 
clubs, to despoil them, and to imprison 
priests, and to shoot them, — this was 
all very easy. It was a persecution 
which made its martyrs. It is impos- 
sible even to-day to imagine in the name 
of what liberty this was done, because 
among the Communists one could find 
trace of no philosophy whatsoever. They 
proclaimed themselves Materialists anil 
Atheists, without understanding what 



406 



EUHOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



(hose two terms meant. They had 
neither doctrine nor theory. Like tamed 
parrots, they said over and over again 
words the sense of which they knew noth- 
ing about. Their incoherence was such 
that they were in permanent contradic- 
tion to themselves, and did not know it. 
A moment before Ins death Theophile 
Kerre wrote to his sister: ' Let it lie well 

understood, — no religious ceremony. I 
die a Materialist, as 1 have lived.' Then 
he added : ' Place a crown of immortelles 
upon the tomb of our mother.' They 
were all like this. They repudiated the 
belief, but they preserved the emblem of 
it. They called themselves partisans 
ofeqnality, liberty, and fraternity. This 
was their device. They inscribed it as 
the protocol of their oflieial acts, on 
their flags, on the walls. 

"They did not understand that it was 
by Christianity alone that the peoples be- 
came free and tin' masters ok their own 
destiny. To suppress future life, and the 
belief in the reward promised to courage, 
s ici ilice. and virtue, is to bring man 
to :i condition in which he takes no 
heed for his sonl, and seeks here below 
only immediate enjoyment. If we add 
to this tin' theory of Darwin, of which 
the Communists had retained only the 
dangerous part, we arrive fatally at the 
struggle for existence, which is a perma- 
nent insurrection, and at the theory of 

selection, which le:ids straight to des- 
potism. 

"The Commune, perhaps without know- 
ing it, really wished to formulate its ideal 
of society accordingto these principles, — 
a state of things which would have much 
resembled a return to primitive bar- 
barism. By the application of such 
ideas we get back to the stone age. The 
Commune perished too soon to unveil or 
precise its philosophical system, which 
would have been of a purely animal ma- 



terialism. We may draw this conclusion 
from the fact that Robespierre, much ad- 
mired as a director of the guillotine by 
many members of the Commune, was at 
the same time blamed and despised, be- 
cause he had, as they said, invented a 
Supreme Being. The government would 
willingly, imitating Anacharsis Clootz, 
have declared themselves the personal 
enemies of .lesus Christ, whose reputa- 
tion .Ink's Yallcs had declared was en- 
tirely overrated. Thus it is easy to see 
that every violent measure against (he 
clergy was adopted without discussion at 
the Hotel de Ville." 

The Communists carried their denial 
of the liberty of conscience so far that 
they took' pains to prevent the children 
from attending church, and would not 
even let the burial-service be read over 
the dead. One day in April the old 
church in the Lue St. Jacques was in- 
vaded by the Federals. Sentinels were 
stationed at the doors; the few kneeling 
worshippers were informed that they 
must arise and depart, or it would be 
the worse for them. The priests in the 
sacristy were visited by two of the dele- 
gates of the Commune, who said they 
had come to make a requisition. Just 
at that time a. funeral procession arrived 
ami stopped in front of the church. The 
mourners and friends entered to attend 
the mass which had been appointed for 

that hour. The sentinels informed them 
that they could not pass, and, as they 
found this very strange, the commanding 
officer said, "All that is out of fashion 
now. Clear out with your dead man and 
take him to the cemetery! That is the 
best thing von can do. — by far more de- 
cent than to havc> him sprinkled with a 
lot, of dirty water by the priests." 

The invasion of the convents and the 
search for compromising documents and 
evidence of the crimes which the lower 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



4G7 



classes have always believed were eom- 
mittedin the mysterious religious edifices, 
attracted great attention from all who 
were in Paris during the insurrection. 
In the Picpus, a celebrated religious in- 
stitution in the Faubourg St. Antoine, the 
Communal searchers announced one day 
that they had found something very 
horrifying. They came to one cell, 
which the terrified nun who was com- 
pelled to serve them as guide refused to 
open ; so they forced an entrance, and 
there found in a narrow dungeon three 
nuns, who had been imprisoned for nine 
years. Neither of the three women had 
sense enough to understand that deliver- 
ance was at hand, but each seemed dimly 
to realize that something strange had 
happened. None of them could explain 
why they had been imprisoned. In the 
cellars of this convent the Communists 
dug up the earth, and announced that 
they there found many skeletons and 
bones of children. This statement was 
naturally denied with much warmth by 
all the Catholic population ; whereupon 
the Commune announced that it would 
place the testimony of its delegates with- 
out doubt, and opened an inquest on the 
subject, which was swallowed up in the 
absorbing excitement of the greater 
events when the regular troops entered. 
In these dangerous and disturbed days 
of the early part of May one sometimes 
saw walking tranquilly on the boulevard, 
as if there had been no interruption to 
his daily habits or the serenity of his 
intellectual life, the venerable composer 
Auber, the "young old" man, as he was 
called by his compatriots, who persisted 
in giving him a reputation which pos- 
terity perhaps will refuse to accord him. 
Auber was of that race of Parisians 
which leads an active and vigorous life 
long after the allotted age of threescore 
and ten has been reached ; and in his 



eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth year he 
was as fresh and apparently as untram- 
melled by the ordinary infirmities of age 
as a man of sixty. He was usually 
surrounded by a bevy of charming young 
women, who delighted in offering him 
public profession of their admiration ; 
and he accepted these delicate feminine 
offices, the presentation of bouquets, and 
pretty compliments, with a grave and 
stately courtesy, which belonged to the 
elder school, and of which the new gen- 
eration has scarcely preserved a trace. 
He was a great favorite under the 
Empire, both with the government and 
the people ; and I remember to have 
seen him standing hand in hand with 
Rossini, on the occasion of a great eon- 
cert given at the Palais de l'lndustrie, 
receiving for more than twenty minutes 
a tremendous ovation. Wreaths, crowns, 
and flowers were showered about the 
two composers who had contributed so 
much to the intellectual enjoyment of 
the world. The hundreds of musicians 
applauded as enthusiastically as did the 
twenty-five thousand persons in the audi- 
ence. I question if there was ever a 
greater popular reception accorded to a 
musician. Auber had once been strik- 
ingly handsome. His face, which was 
very pale ; his deep-set eyes, which still 
retained a bit of their quondam sparkle ; 
his white hair, and his dignity of man- 
ner, — made a pleasant and a striking im- 
pression. Persons who saw him in the 
lobby of the Opera Comique, which is a 
kind of temple to his talent, for we can 
scarcely accord him genius, would turn 
and inquire who he was. The old man 
who had had such a long and pleasant ca- 
reer died after au illness of a day or two, 
in his mansion in the Rue St. Georges, and 
scarcely any public notice was taken of 
his funeral, for most of his friends were 
absent, and the general public had other 



468 



EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 



things than music and the memories of 
its composer i" engage their attention. 

One of the illogical notions of the 
Commune was that in the event of its 
success, it would be able to promote 
general and lasting peace throughout 
Europe; and early in its ephemeral reign 
it decreed that the election of the Yeii- 
ddme Column had been an insult to 
sister nations, and should be atoned for 
by the destruction of this memorial of 
military glory. Speakers at meetings 
during the siege had ofteu hinted at the 
destruction of the Column, saying that 
the French nation had no interests save 
those strictly allied with peace 1 , and, 
therefore, should not maintain a standing 
menace and memento of triumph. Many 
a Frenchman who had no sympathy with 
the ideas of tin 1 Commune had penned a 
philippic against thegreat bronze column. 
Auguste Barbier was not a great poet, 
but he was a very good one, and when he 
wrote his indictment against the Idol, as 
he called the Column, he created a. pro- 
found impression. He awoke an echo 
which the Bonapartist family would have 
much preferred to leave sleeping. Victor 
Hugo had also cursed the gigantic 
"Monument to murder " in verse none 
the less eloquent because filled with 
malice and political venom. Barbier 
wrote a magnificent allegory, in which he 
described Napoleon as spurring the 
French people to exhaustion, yet de- 
manding that they should goon, and for- 
ever on. His description of the entry of 
the Allies into Paris, in 1814, and the 
manner in which the French people, 
which hail been mastered by Napoleon I., 
had been compelled to humble itself 
before the rude northern men and the 
warriors of middle Europe, excelled in 
simple eloquence and pathos any of the 
protests against the Second Empire. 
>,'o sooner was the day set by the 



Commune for the taking down of the 
Column than engineers asserted that its 
fall would shake the foundations of the 
most solid houses in the neighborhood ; 
and all the stupid shopkeepers for a mile 
around papered their huge gla*-s windows 
with lone- strips of thick brown paper 
to deaden the results of the concussion. 
Many people nrged that only the statue 
of Napoleon in his Csesaric robes should 
be removed. The Commune had, how- 
ever, made its contract with an able and 
ingenious engineer, who, for the sum of 
."..i.ooo francs, was to lay the monument 
low before a certain day, agreeing to pay a 
forfeitof 600 francs for each day's delay. 
The Column, which was erected in imita- 
tion of the Antonine Column, at Kome, 
was begun in 1800, one year after Na- 
poleon's greatest campaign ; and the 
military administration placed twelve 
hundred captured cannon at the disposi- 
tion of the architects. This enormous 
weight of bronze, amounting to one 
million eight hundred thousand pounds, 
was cast into plates, carved in lias-reliefs 
representing the exploits of the Imperial 
campaign. Each plate was three feet 
eight inches high, ami was separated 
from the one above it by a. band, on 
which were inscribed the names and 
dates of the various engagements. The 
pedestal, established on the site of the 
still more famous one on which stood 
the bronze equestrian statue of Louis 
XIV., was thirty feet high, and the 
column itself rose to the height of one 
hundred and eighteen feet. The eagles 
upon the pedestal wen 1 very artistically 
carved, and each weighed live hundred 

pounds. The effigy of Bonaparte, placed 
on high, came down twice in successive 
generations; and now the third was to 
fall. On the side facing the Tuileries 
Gardens, and just under the dome on 
which the Csesar- Emperor was mounted, 



EUROPE IN STORM ANT) CALM. 



460 



was this inscription, " This monument 
was raised in memory of the glory of 
the Grand Empire." 

It was said that some of the <>ld Inva- 
lides wept when the Column fell; but 
they were at least the only persons who 
suffered any marked chagrin. For sev- 
eral days before the fall of the Column 
crowds thronged the line de la Pais and 
the adjacent streets, the workmen and 
workwomen being especially anxious to 
be present at the ceremony. Many quar- 
rels arose daily in these gatherings, and 
sometimes a party of irate Communists 
carried off to prison the men and women 
who had dared to express themselves 
against tin 1 triumphant faction. On the 
10th of May the official journal an- 
nounced in a modest paragraph that the 
demolition of the Column would take 
place at two P.M. A cordon of cav- 
alry, the Republican Guard, clad in red, 
white, and blue, despite the Communistic 
hate of the tricolor, was stationed on 
the Rae de la Paix, and presently the 
usual crowd was so increased that the 
masses were packed in with scarcely 
breathing-room. Every few minutes an 
orderly galloped through the narrow line 
which was left open, bearing news of 
fresh disaster or probable victory to the 
head-quarters. 

In the Place Vendome, and from the 
other side, battalions of troops going 
out to the light beyond the fortifications 
were singing lusty songs. Workmen 
mounted on the balcony at the Column's 
top, whence so many people, tired of 
life, had cast themselves down to die. 
manoeuvred the ropes which descended 
to a gigantic capstan, erected at a safe 
distance from the bed of brush and ma- 
nure upon which the glory of Napoleon 
was finally to repose. Towards two 
o'clock a certain Colonel Henry mounted 
to the top, and, clinging round the feet 



of Napoleon's figure, thrice waved the 
tricolor, the flag of France, and then 
tore it from its staff and threw it into 
the square. Very little responsive cheer- 
ing came from the crowds below, but a 
band was heard feebly playing the Mar- 
seillaise. 

In the square, which, as we learned 
on that day, was henceforth to be called 
Place Internationale, a large number of 
the celebrities of Paris Rouge were col- 
lected. Rochefort, accompanied by his 
daughter, his sister, and his secretary, 
was one of the first to arrive, and was 
assigned a prominent window. Many 
of the radical members of the late < 'or/is 
LSgislatif were in the throng, but re- 
received little notice from any one. 
Among the members of the Commune 
were Arnault, Jacques Durand, Portot, 
and Fortune, to whom was assigned the 
speech after the descent of the Column. 
Just as the workmen had begun at the 
capstan, two hours after the appointed 
time, and the cables attached to the sum- 
mit of the Column were beginning to 
tighten, a rope snapped, and one of the 
laborers dropped, half killed. He was 
taken away, and others mounted at once 
to the summit to repair the broken 
cable. The excitable crowd surged up 
and down, and many of the more violent 
anarchists talked of imprisoning the con- 
tractor, who seemed to have failed in 
his scheme. 

But just then the men at the capstan 
began to work again ; the Column gave a 
slight shiver, and an immense scream, 
half tenor, half delight, arose from the 
people. Yet it was necessary to pro- 
cure another cable. Workmen were de- 
spatched to the Ministry of the Marine, 
and another hour of waiting was endured 
by the people, who were profoundly con- 
vinced that the Clash would be terrible. 
At last a sharp whistle warned every 



470 



EUROPE IN STORM AND 



AIM. 



one to watch, and just as a black-bearded 
gentleman behind me observed that he 
had been a civil engineer for eighteen 
years, and that he would stake his repu- 
tation on the statement that the Column 
could never be got down that way, there 
was a resonant crack, and the great mass 
descended rapidly through the air. A 
dull, dead sound was 
heard as the weight 
crashed through the 
pavement, and then 
an overwhelming 
cloud of dust arose 
and CO n C e a 1 ed 
everything. 

But the memorial 
of Imperial glory 



ing up the ladders on to the statue and 
the crumbling ruins. The contractor 
had, after taking off one of the great 
plates of bronze, made a deep incision 
in the stone work. The Column was 
then shored up by two huge beams, one 
of which snapped like an asparagus 
shoot when the fall began. The Column 
burst as it fell, and the statue was sepa- 
rated from the dome. A sailor jumped 
upon it, and was about to crush the face 
of the bronze Napoleon with a stone, 
but was forbidden by an officer. Dozeus 
of people rushed upon the Place, and 
carried off bits of the stone and of the 
shattered plating. 

Fortune's speech was neither long nor 
eloquent, nor was it listened to. The 




EWS0DE OK THE COMMUXE —THE FALLEN' t '.ESAU. — THE COLUMN VEN'IHIME. 



was fallen, and Communists embraced 
Communists in the ecstasy of their de- 
light, ami women ran hither and yon 
clapping their hands. The Federal cav- 
alry was pushed back by the gigantic 
rush, and retired, growling, and brandish- 
ing sabres of which no one was afraid, 
towards the barricades at the entrance of 
the Place. The smoke and dust having 
cleared away, we saw men mounted on 
the pedestal, and brandishing red flags 
of the Commune, and other men climb- 



only noteworthy sentence in it was: 
••This is the day of vengeance; this is 
the defiance hurled at the assassins of 
Versailles; this is the day when the peo- 
ple reclaim their rights," — all of which 
was somewhat indefinite. During the 
whole afternoon the sullen booming of 
the cannon was heard ; and many an- 
nounced that the Prussians were tiring a 
salute to the Commune, in honor of its 
dignified conduct in taking down the 
war memorial. lint this is only a 



EUROrE TN STORM AND CALM. 



471 



sample of the absurd rumors that pre- j n riotous dissipation. When the guard 
vailed. arrived on the night in question, a large 

It was about this time that the Com- number of officers were found supping 
mune, which had declared most radical sumptuously with an equal number of 
measures against the vice of the 
great capital, and particularly 
against the legal recognition of a 
certain vice, sent a strong detach- 
ment of soldiers to close the cele- 
brated Cafe American). This brill- 
iant establishment, on one of the 
central boulevards, was, I believe, 
called American because the proprie- 
tor had long exercised the profession 
of a restaurateur in America. It 
was without doubt one of the most 
luxurious establishments in the 
world. The private cabinets were 
adorned with gold ; the panels were 
of satin, embroidered in superb 
colors; elegant pianos, sideboards 
loaded with crystal, and inlaid ta- 
bles, as well as the faultless cuisine 
and the excellent wines, had given 
the cafe an international reputa- 
tion. It was built towards the close 
of 1867, when the Great Exhibition 
had shown the Paris tradesmen what 
a mint of money might lie made out 
of strangers. The public supper- 




A prcpos des jcan-foutres de 

patisseries bons patriate* a la <jvcrre euih 
Sa ijrninlr motion pour la sv pjy£V r ' 

fecture de police. 
Aree son aposUopkzS 

gardes nut' 

eito'jens 



FAC-SIMILE OP A TITLE- 
PAGE. 



Gai [e i * 

... 
i .. . ■ 



women, whose costly ap- 
parel was their only claim 
to consideration. The 
rooms were rarely opened before midnight, officers were seized, thrown into vans, and 
and were only frequented by strangers, a sent to the front, where they were trans- 
few fashionable and dissipated Parisians, ferred to the trenches, and made to work 



and the elite of the dissolute women of 
Paris. Many of the cafes had already 
been visited by the Communists, and the 
garcons, or waiters, taken to serve in the 



with pickaxe and shovel. The women were 
] lacked off to prison and to hard labor; 
the waiters in the cafe were seized, and 
all who had no excuse were drafted. 



army, lint the Cafd Americain had up The next day a sentinel was placed at 

to this time enjoyed a singular iinmu- the entrance of the <:uf<\ and no one 

nity. The officers of the innumerable was allowed to enter. The shutters were 

Communist staffs, resplendent with fancy finally put up, ami the brilliant throng 

decorations, were accustomed to stroll of loungers on the terrace in front was 

into these places towards midnight when seen no more until the arrival of the 

they were off duty, and there to indulge regulars. 



472 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTY. 



The Narrow Escape from a Reign of Terror. — The Men who Composed (he Communal Councils. — The 
Beginning of the End. — The Entry of the Regular Troops.— The Tocsin. — The Night Alarm. 



Tl (WARDS its close, the Commune 
tended directly to the establishment 
of a '• reign of terror." It did not enter 
coolly upon such a course, but seems to 
have been driven to it. both by its own 
despemte situation and by the madness 
of its supporters. From the 1st to the 
".'lid of May, no day was without its 
revolutionary measures, some of them 
fantastic and ridiculous, others savagely 
practical and dangerous to the security 
of tin' upper and middle classes. A 
'• committee of public safety," composed 
of resolute men like Arnaud, Mil- 
liere, Ranvier, and Felix Pyat, had the 
most extraordinary powers delegated 
to it. The Commune began to feel the 
lack of money, so the great railways had 
to pay up their back taxes; and in one 
morning the representatives of the lead- 
ing corporations brought into the Com- 
munal otliees many hundreds of thousands 
of francs. On the 4th of May, the 
Commune abolished all political and 
professional oaths as useless and cum- 
1 irons formalities ; and on the same day 
it decreed the destruction of the " Ex- 
piatory Chapel," as the modest edifice 
dedicated to the memory of Louis XVI. 

is called. 

A few days later, the Communists be- 
came bolder. Citizen Fontaine was 
named as delegate to assume charge of 
the confiscation of the estates of the 
churches and monasteries within the 
domain of the Commune. Presently, a 
change was made in the membership of 



the " committee of public safety": and 
it was then that Delesclnze, Kudes, and 
Gambon were joined to the dreaded or- 
ganization. It is easy to see what 
would have been their course from the 
first proclamation which they made, and 
which was dated the 24th of Floreal, 
year '7'.); or in the bourgeois calendar, 
May 14th, 1871. This proclamation re- 
quired that till citizens should carry con- 
stantly about them cards establishing 
their identity, by giving their names, 
professions, ages, domiciles, numbers of 
the legions, battalions, or companies, to 
which they belonged ; and furthermore, 
their personal description. With this 
strange law in full operation, no one 
would have been safe from arrest. 
Thousands of people could have been 
swept into great barracks and prisons, 
and packed together there as they were 
in the old Revolution, on the simple pre- 
text thai their identity was not clearly 
established. The "committee of public 
safety" alleged, as the reason forthis law, 
that it was necessary to know who were 
friends and who were enemies. Iu 
other words, it created a class of sus- 
pects, and if it had once got them into 
prison, who knows but that it might have 
made victims of them as it did of the 
hostages? 

Meantime, the civil officers of the Com- 
mune were scourged with the fear that 
the Versailles government would achieve 
by money what it had not, thus far, suc- 
ceeded in doing by force. They there- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



473 



fore decreed that there should be " civil 
commissioners" representing the Com- 
mune to act in harmony with, in other 
words to watch over, the generals of the 
three armies of the ('•immune These 
generals were Dombrowski, La Cecilia, 
and Wrobleski. At this time, the hand 
of Versailles was seen by the Commu- 
nists in every misfortune, however little 
effect it might have on their campaigns. 
When the great cartridge factory in the 
Rue Rapp was blown up, and one hun- 
dred persons were killed, this was 
instantly attributed by the Commune to 
the enemy at Versailles. 

Another decisive step towards the 
"Reign of Terror" was made on May 
17th, when the Citizen Raoul Rigault, 
procureur de la Commune, presented 
with a great flourish of trumpets the 
following project. " The Commune of 
Paris, in view of the immediate necessity 
thereof, decrees : Article 1. — A jury of 
accusation can provisionally, in the case 
of persons accused of crimes or political 
otfenses, pronounce penalties so soon as 
it has decided upon the culpability of 
the accused. Article 2. — Sentences 
shall be decided by the majority of the 
votes. Article 3. — Sentences shall be 
executed within twenty-four hours." 

Raoul Rigault hastened to add that he 
would rather allow a culpable person to 
escape than to have a single innocent 
one injured ; and by this single phrase 
he betrayed himself, for he knew that if 
this savage law were put into operation 
it would entangle in its meshes the inno- 
cent and the guilty alike. Many simi- 
lar projects were brought forward in the 
meetings of the Communists, and if the 
insurrection had lasted another month 
they would all have been in full opera- 
tion. 

Presently new changes were made in 
the Committee of Public Safety, and, 



frequently reorganized, this body, on the 
20th of May, issued a warning to all 
individuals who might think of offering 
or accepting money as bribes, that they 
would bring themselves under the penal- 
ties for the crime of high treason, and 
would immediately be brought before 
court-martials. 

In these exciting days, when the fatal 
weakness of the Communist, army was 
beginning to disclose itself, the Com- 
munal legislative body still found time 
to devote a little attention to matters of 
education, and it issued an older sup- 
pressing all the subsidized theatres, in 
conformity, to use its own language, 
" with the principles established by the 
first Republic, and enunciated by the 
law of ' Germinal in the year 11.'" But 
the crowning stroke of audacity was the 
decree which indicates, more clearly than 
anything else, the desperate measures 
upon which the Commune was almost 
resolved. It was published on the 20tb 
of May, and read as follows: "The 
inhabitants of Paris are invited to return 
to their homes within forty-eight hours. 
After that time their stocks and bonds 
and the registries thereof will be burned." 
This emanated from the Central Com- 
mittee, and was signed by a man named 
Grelier. It was expected to bring back 
many thousands of persons who had 
taken refuge in Versailles. It was the 
vindictive menace of the non-property- 
holding class against the property-hold- 
ers. As a witty French friend of mine 
[Hit it, the Communists invited the prop- 
erty-holders to come home and be 
beaten, and threatened that if they did 
not accept this invitation their houses and 
their proofs of wealth would be burned. 
"Nous avons refuse" mieux que cela," 
said the bourgeois; and they remained in 
Versailles and the other suburban towns 
where they had taken refuge. 



474 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

General Cluseret's trial before the existence of a Supreme Being, and were 
Commune was the last exciting incident rapidly organizing a grand scheme of ven- 
previous to the entry of the regular geauce upon the whole property-holding 
troops. Cluseret conducted his own class. This company contained in its 
defense with threat coolness and modern- ranks, contrary to what might be suc- 
tion, responded to the most idiotic and posed from its revolutionary actions, 
treacherous insinuations with frankness few men of distinguished ability, and 
and courage, and when he was acquitted, few who had ever been heard of outside 
after one or two of the more violent the walls of Paris before. Blanqui, the 
members had claimed his head, with sublime old revolutionist, whose whole 
ferocity worthy of their prototypes of life seems to have been a blind protest 
the old revolution he made the assem- against the evils of monarchy, and who 
bled members a little speech, in which was no sooner let out of prison than he 
he said that they had seen lit to arrest undertook some conspiracy which speed- 
liim and had now seen fit to discharge ily brought him back to durance vile, 
him. lie bore them no malice, and was — Blanqui had no chance to sit in the 
willing to serve them again if he could. Communal assembly. After actively en- 
It is amusing to reflect that the most gaging in two or three abortive revolu- 
important charge brought against Gen- lions, which preceded the great final 
eral Cluseret by his incompetent and outbreak of the Commune, he hail gone 
ignorant associates in office was that he into the southern departments to prepare 
bad boasted that his position was worth the faithful in those sections for the 
a million. " Cluseret," said the apes in coming change at Paris, anil was ar- 
unifinni who denounced him. "is going rested and placed in a fortress. Blan- 
to tiii it traitor and sell us for a million." qui was a man of superior talent ; but 

As the Genera] himself told the Com- at the lime of his connection with the 

iiiiii lists, — and as there seems little reason Commune he had been so long in prison 

to doubt, — the whole story arose over the that be had lost nearly all knowledge of 

remark of an American who called upon modern progress, as well as his conli- 

liiin for a pass with which to leave denee in the professions of moderate 

Paris, and who jocosely said to Cluseret Republicans in France. When he was 

on taking leave of him, ' u You were finally liberated from prison, seven or 

not worth much money a little time ago, eight years after lie had been sentenced 

but your place is worth a million now." to "perpetual detention" for his partiei- 

This Cluseret repeated, and was forth- pation ill the Commune, he was better 

with denounced by some busybody. acquainted with the courses of the stars 

The members of this company of dar- ami the phenomena of the heavens than 

ing adventurers, who thus for more than with every-day politics ; and be survived 

six weeks maintained the greatest in- his liberation but a short time. There 

SUirection of modern times, kept up a is something pathetic in the history of 

very vigorous defense against an angry, this old man. nearly thirty years in 

and, on the whole, well-equipped army prison because of his undying hatred of 

of tegular troops, overturned nearly illibcralism, as well as because of his 

even important and fundamental prin- valiant attempts to overturn the govern- 

ciple of society, suppressed religion, meiils which displeased him. In the 

scornfully kicked at morals, denied the closing years of his life, while he was 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CADI. 



47. - ) 



still a prisoner at Clervaux, it is said 
that be slept all day and stood wakeful 
all night at bis window, studying the 
.sky, to which be bad been compelled to 
turn bis thoughts because tlie lower 
world was closed to him. 

The origins and callings of most of 
the members of the Commune were quite 
humble. Amonroux was a batter; An- 
drieu, an accountant; Arnaud. a manu- 
facturer ; Arnold, an architect ; Assi 
and Adrial, mechanics ; Bergeret was a 
commercial traveller ; Beslay, who was 
a member of the Finance Committee, was 
described as "retired from business;" 
Billioray was an Italian painter. There 
were workers in morocco, in brpss, in 
bronze ; bookbinders, shoemakers, stone- 
cutters, dyers, bank clerks, millers, 
chemists, jewellers, house-painters, 
eliairmakers, turners, photographers, 
.sculptors in wood, commission agents, 
doctors, wine-touts, carpenters, lawyers, 
horse-doctors, corset-makers, teachers, 
civil engineers, and furniture-makers, in 
this motley gathering of men who hoped 
to sway the destinies of Paris, and by 
their conduct to influence the politics of 
Europe. Finally, there were in the 
Communal Council no less than nine 
journalists, of whom two or three were 
vigorous writers, and appeared pro- 
foundly convinced of the justice of the 
insane movement in which they were in- 
volved. Delescluze, Courmet, Vermorel, 
Valles (afterwards the editor of a Radical 
paper in Paris), Vesinier, all had good 
local reputations. Cluseret, Gustave 
Courbet, the well-known ami eccentric 
painter, and Gustave Flourens, were. 
perhaps, the only Communists whose 
reputation had extended beyond the 
limits of their own country. The ma- 
jority of these men escaped alive out of 
the great whirlwind of the last of May, 
1871. Those who were brought to bay 



died philosophically, like Delescluze, or, 
with a certain bravado, like Milliere and 
Raoul Rigault. They had boldly staked 
their existence upon the success of their 
experiment, and probably the more in- 
telligent of them were sorry to survive 
its failure. 

The end came with startling sudden- 
ness. At one o'clock on the morning of 
Monday, the 23d of May, I was turn- 
ing homeward from the central boule- 
vards, after a long conversation with a 
marble-worker of Belleville, who bad 
given me an animated account of a 
skirmish at the gates of the town from 
which he had just returned, when, at 
the corner of the Hue Caumartin, I met 
three friends, and we took our way 
together in the magnificent moonlight 
to the upper story of a huge mansion in 
the Boulevard Malesherbes. The friend, 
who was the lessee of this apartment, 
invited us to remain there overnight, 
putting at our disposition the rooms 
which bad recently been deserted by bis 
family, and mentioned his conviction 
that important events were close at 
hand. 

Even as he spoke there came a faint 
sound borne on the midnight breeze as of 
music in the distance, or like the clang of 
village bells. Presently it came again, 
and at last swelled into a great harmony 
which was at once superb and exciting. 
One of the party — an Anglo- Parisian — ■ 
sprang out on to the balcony, listened 
for a moment, then rushed back into the 
room and cried, " It is the tocsin ! " 

It was, indeed, the tocsin ; and. should 
I live for a century longer, I should 
hope never to heal' again so grand and 
so imposing an alarum. This night of 
May was, save for the occasional crack- 
ing of far-off musketry, so tranquil, so 
full of perfume of flowers and of the 
fresh, green leaves, so abounding in the 



le 



e 



476 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

lusty life of the opening summer, that it was no doubt of it: the regular army 

appealed I" revery rather than aroused had entered, and the great final battle 

to action. Uutil the lirst notes from was at hand. 

the mellow bells the central district of By-and-by the noise of the tocsin 

l'aiis was as quiet as a village. As we faded away into the rush of the night 

hail walked home we had seen here and breeze; and when we were weary of the 

there a belated soldier dragging his sore heavy rumble of cannon going to the 

feet wearily along, or a gossiping group front, and caissons jolting by, we stol 

of servant-girls; but nothing to call to to bed, and from sheer fati<me slept 

miiiil the danger and the excitement of until dawn. In the morning, when I 

war. Te inntes after the brazen awoke, after a dream of a garden Idled 

clangor of the huge bells in the tower of with fruits and flowers, the lirst thing 

Notre Dame had been borne to our which I heard was a fresh voice singing : 
startled ears, soldiers, cannon, drums, 

trumpets, and bugles seemed to have " Bon Francais doit vivre pour elle, 

sprung out of the solid earth. Men Et pour elle bon Francais doit mourir." 
were shouting to each other from the 

roofs of houses ; lights and watch-fires '1'he sempiternal gamin, the GavrocJi 
sprung up on Montmartre ; little bodies of the barricades, was already on hand, 
of National Guards hastened to group — as ready for a combat as for a song. 
themselves into battalions ; and the wild As soon as my companions were astir 
noles of the bugles echoed from every we started to leave the house, but were 
quarter. niel by the concierge with the statement 
We sat long on the balcony, high that no one could venture into the street, 
above the trees, listening to the grand that a battle was imminent, and that 
anthem of alarm which resounded from we had barricades on all sides of us. 
Belleville down to Notre Dame. Iron: We heard cries of fright beneath our 
St. Sulpice around to St. Germain des windows, and these were amply ex- 
1'res. Then, far away, too, where, as we plained by the sibilation of the shells, 
afterwards learned, the enemy had just whieh now began to pass over the roof 
entered, some bells pealed their chimes ; in all directions. From the front win- 
others gave solemnly the three regular dows of our lofty apartment we could 
clangs, whieh, when heard amid the see the dust caused by the crash of the 
furious beating of the drum, produced a falling projectiles; and a conflagration 
most remarkable effect. Ammunition- on the Rue de Kivoli was already send- 
wagons rattled away right and left; ing up columns of dense black smoke, 
and on the corner of the Rue Royale, In the Place de la Concorde we could 
near the noble Corinthian front of the distinctly hear the noise of artillery ; and 
Madeleine, a great body of soldiers was all along tin- Boulevard Malesherbes we 
collected, ami we heard presently the saw the defenders of the Commune, the 
monotonous clatter of their footsteps, soldiers in uniform, and the boys and 
Presently, mingled with the clangor of girls from the workman's quarter taking 
the bells, and the roll of the drums, up the paving-stones and piling them into 
and the rumble of the batteries, we barricades, cutting down sycamores and 
heard the hissing and the bursting of dragging them hither and yon for the 
shells, now near, now far away. There fabrication of chevaux defrise. Prespntlv 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



477 



we were joined by two or three Ameri- 
cans, who had been compelled to lend a 
hand at the barricades before they could 
pass, and who had only escaped arrest 
by stating that they had acquaintances 
in this our house, near the door of which 
they had been seized. A sergeant, with 
half-a-dozen men, was marking out a 
semicircular line of defense at the 
mouth of the Rue Pasquier, and watch- 
ful guards brought into the line of labor- 
ers all men who chanced to enter the 
street. We saw many who refused to 
work smartly rapped over the heads with 
the butts of guns ; and in some cases, 
when a man had escaped, men ran after 
him and dragged him back. The doors 
and windows on the lower floors of all 
shops and houses were rapidly closed, 
and at nine o'clock the Boulevard Males- 
herbes, which at seven had displayed 



all its wonted activity, was as silent as 
a country graveyard. We could look 
directly down upon the barricade, de- 
fended by two small six - pounders, 
handled with great skill by half-a-dozen 
men dressed as soldiers. From the ac- 
tion of these men we judged that they 
were confronting a force by which they 
were likely soon to be attacked, and we 
watched their movements with breathless 
anxiety. As it happened this barricade 
was one of the keys of the situation. 
The attack upon it from the church of 
St. Augustin was one of tin 1 mosl ob- 
stinate and vigorous made by the regulars 
during the street fighting; and by our 
accidental visit to this apartment we 
had secured a capital view of one of the 
most important episodes of the insurrec- 
tion. 



478 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE. 

Streetlight in'g :is a Science. —-The Barricades. — A Ruse J' Gut rre. — Looking Down on a Battle. — The 
Burning of the Rue Royale. —The Defence of Montmartre. — Genera] Dombrowski's Death. 



IN a short time the Communists in 
"our barricade," as we now called 
it, received orders from some authority 
further back in the centre of the town. 
The marines manoeuvred their little 
guns, Gred away in the direction of the 
St. Augustin Church, which we could 
not sec, although we could get a glimpse 
of part of the broad avenue leading 
directly to it. There was much excite- 
ment after this preliminary shot, and in 
a few minutes it was answered by the 
boom of a cannon, and solid shot came 
crashing against the great paving-stones, 
upsetting the little guns and raising such 
a dust and smoke that we could see 
nothing for two or three minutes. When 
we looked, one man was down. The 
marines had taken off their hats and 
were shouting, '■'■Vive /./ Commune," 
and forty or fifty National Guards were 
cowering behind the barricade which had 
been hastily repaired. Crash came an- 
other solid shot again. The stones flew, 
and two men were carried off. At this 
juncture, sharp-shooters were thrown 
out in front of our barricade, and aery 
arose in the street that the 1 regulars were 
about to charge. The house in which 
we were was what is known in Paris as 
an Hot. Standing at the angle of two 
streets, it commanded a view in three 
directions. From the front windows we 
could look directly down upon the bar- 
ricade just described, on the right upon 
the Boulevard Malesherbes ; and on the 
left into two or three streets, which we 



now - perceived were tilled with Commu- 
nists, well fortified behind barricades. 
A great noise of tiring now came from 
the Champs Elysees, and we heard a 
bugle sounding the attack. By and by 
the sharp-shooters retired in confusion 
behind their barricade, and looking down 
upon the barricade, we saw that they 
had left four dead men behind them. 

At this moment the circular barricade 
at the coiner of the Hue Pasquier was de- 
serted by its defenders, who had gone to 
reinforce the greater one, extending di- 
rectly across the Boulevard Malesherbes. 
The rushing sound of the solid shot com- 
ing from the church of St. Augustin was 
now incessant. The Versaillais had got 
the battery at work, anil were preparing 
to make an attack, after having made a 
break in the barricades. 

Towards four o'clock the storm of 
shot and shell became so deadly and 
overwhelming that our rooms were hardly 
safer than the open street. The Commu- 
nists had taken possession of all the bal- 
conies behind the line of their defense. 
and sent shot frequently into the win- 
dows of the houses outside their lines, 
because of their suspicion that the 

regular troops had occupied some of 

those houses. About half past four we 
witnessed probably the most singular 
incident of the whole insurrection. One 
of our company who was watching at a, 
front window cried out, — " The Liners ! 
The Liners!" We all ran to see, and 
there surely enough was a Versaillais 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



479 



advancing towards the barricade timidly, 
while the insurgents were loudly cheering 
him in token of welcome. One of the 
Communists held his musket reversed in 
the air, and shook it invitingly. But 
suddenly the regulars appeared from all 
corners, came running across the street 
from the direction of the Rue Boissy 
d'Anglais, and stood huddled together as 
if waiting some general movement. One 
held up his hand to his comrades at the 
chinch as if urging them not to lire, and 
then cautiously entered the barricade, 
lie was received with great joy, embraced, 
and called endearing names. Others 
were inclined to follow him, when all at 
once a suspicion seemed to thrill the 
Communist lines, ■ — this might be a ruse 
da guerre, a stratagem ; and twenty in- 
surgents leaped upon the piled-up stones, 
and pointed their guns straight into the 
faces of the regulars, who were now 
pressing forward, and were so taken 
by surprise that the}' crouched behind, 
looking pitifully up, as if they expected 
the fatal shots. Just at this juncture a 
Versaillais officer appeared at the cor- 
ner of the Hue Pasquier, where a number 
of his men stood undecided. lie angrily 
called them back, and, throwing away 
the gun which he had been carrying, 
drew his sword. Twenty or thirty liners 
ran swiftly, and succeeded in reaching 
the court-yard of a neighboring house, 
the door of which they forced open. A 
Communist officer shot a liner as he 
ran ; the man dropped dead in his tracks ; 
and then a frightful hand-to-hand milie 
ensued. The explanation of this singu- 
lar proceeding was obvious. The regu- 
lars had intended to take the barricade 
by stratagem. The insurgents had hoped 
to incite them to desert and join their 
forces; and when each party found 
its hopes were vain the fight was in- 
evitable. 



Through the rising smoke we could 
dimly discern the figure of a woman, 
tall, angular, ferocious, brandishing a 
gun, and bringing it down with resound- 
ing thwacks upon the heads of those 
assailants who braved the terrible fire. 
She had evidently just arrived in the 
barricade. Every ten minutes, which 
seemed hours, there was a great clamor 
of bullets and cannon. When it ceased 
the Versaillais had all disappeared, the 
insurgents were once more crouched 
behind the barricades, and many of the 
wounded were crying out touching 
appeals for the suspension of hostilities 
until they could lie helped away. A 
Versaillais ran out of a door in the 
Rue Pasquier, and tried to drag in the 
dead man shot by the Communist officer. 
A bullet whizzed close to his ear. He 
dropped the dead man, who festered in 
the sun for hours thereafter. An insur- 
gent lay dead at the right corner of our 
honse on the boulevard. An old gray- 
haired liner reclined directly opposite 
our house in a door-way, looking as if 
he had sat down, and fallen asleep. 
Half a dozen of the red-breeched soldiery 
were heaped together in front of the 
barricade; and behind the stones the 
wounded were numerous, and their am- 
bulance men were hard at work. No 
sooner had the Versaillais retreated 
than their batteries began tiring solid 
shot and shell again. From five o'clock 
until dark the musketry and shelling were 
unrelenting. The insurgents retaliated 
by subjecting the Rue Fasquier and the 
right side of the Boulevard Malesherbes 
to a veritable bombardment. The walls 
and floors of all the adjacent houses 
trembled, and bullets whistled once more 
through our apartments, breaking mir- 
rors and cutting curtains. A gentleman 
from St. Louis, who had frequently been 
cautioned by members of our party 



480 



EUR <>r/:' IX STORM AXD CALM. 



because be insisted on looking with a 
large field-glass out of a window unpro- 
tected by shutters, learned a lesson 
which taught him much. lie had 

retreated to an arm-chair in the middle 
of the room, and there continued his 
observations with his glass, when he 
suddenly arose, and went into the dining- 
room to get a glass of water. When he 
returned he was shown two bullet-holes 
through the back of the chair, and the 
marks on the marble mantel-piece just 
behind. Had he not been thirsty at that 
particular moment the two bullets would 
have perforated his breast. 

As darkness came on, both parties 
fired at Hashes, and now and then sent 
shells over the houses. The concierge 
came to supplicate us not to have can- 
dles or gas lighted. We retired, for 
comparative safety, to the back rooms 
of the lower floors, and supped as best 
we could oft' bread, rice, and a little 
wine, which the landlord, who lived in 
the house, offered us. American house- 
wives must be told that in the apart- 
ment system of the Parisian domiciles 
the pantry is an unknown institution, 
and a blockade of twenty-four hours 
leaves the dwellers in Paris houses des- 
titute of food. Towards nine o'clock 
the smoke cloud did rise a little, but all 
night the angry storm of lead raged at 
intervals, ami early dawn brought the 
noise of a great attack in the Champs 
Khsees, and the wild roar of one directly 
behind our house. The Versaillais were 
now all around us. From time to time 
the barricade on (air front was deserted, 
the Nationals, as the Communists now 
called themselves, rushing to assist in 
the network of defence in the various 

streets, Godot de Malll'oi, Ferine des 

Mathurins, and lie Seze. On this 
Tuesday noon a tremendous cannon- 
ading announced the decisive attack on 



the Place de la Concorde. This was 
succeeded by a fusillade, much more 
terrible ami far stronger than any yet 
heard in our street. Now^ the rush 
of bullets became quite terrifying. The 
thunder of shells, the blowing of bugles, 
and the cracking of chassepots were 
steadily intensified until half-past four 
in the afternoon, when a. detachment of 
Versaillais suddenly appeared in the 
corners of the streets leading from the 
Champs Klysees. As they saw the 
Communist barricades they hesitated. 
An officer was pricking them on with his 
sword when a shot from the barricade 
struck him in the knee. lie fell to the 
sidewalk, still brandishing his sword. 
The men rushed past him, and poured a 
sharp volley into the now demoralized 
insurgents. They saw that they would 
be taken in the rear if they remained a 
moment longer, so they tied precipitately, 
lighting as they went; and the tricolor 
was seen waving from all the houses 
near us. 

The liners at once proceeded to ex- 
amine the knapsacks left behind by the 
Communists, and it was a quaint sight 
t<> see them greedily, and yet suspi- 
ciously, eating the bread found in them. 
In a few moments the house opposite us 
was tilled with soldiers, so we appeared 
on the balcony and hung out an Ameri- 
can Hag. A dozen guns were pointed at 
it, but an officer intervened, and expla- 
nations, which seemed for the moment 
satisfactory, were made. Our newly- 
come Versaillais arranged the barricade 
so as to turn their backs to us. About 
fifty men were put behind it. and they 
lay quietly on their arms waiting orders. 
Pullets now struck the Madeleine's noble 
walls every moment, and little pieces 
were chipped from the columns. 

A great conflagration burst out in 
the Hue Royale, and a dense column of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



481 



smoke near the Place de la Concorde in- 
clined us to believe that the public build- 
ings near at hand had been fired. The 
insurgents were making a strong fight in 
the Rue de Rivoli, and their batteries on 
the boulevards were playing directly on 
the houses which the Versaillais had 
occupied at the junction of our street 
with the boulevard. We could now vent- 
ure on to our balconies with compara- 
tive safety, although the soldiers thought 
it wise to shield themselves with mat- 
tresses. The spectacle around was be- 
yond description. Almost every house 
save our own was vomiting fire and 
smoke from twenty windows. Great 
streams of sparks and cinders were 
flying over the Rue Royale ; shells were 
descending there and in the Place de la 
Concorde ; batteries were rattling under 
our windows on the sidewalks, and in 
the middle of the street, ammunition- 
wagons on every side of us made the 
alighting of shells in our vicinity doubly 
dangerous. The iron hail-storm now 
seemed to turn and continue, in a meas- 
ure, up the boulevards, but presently 
changed, and we could see that the Ver- 
saillais had occupied the Place de la 
Madeleine, and learned that the insur- 
gents were slowly retreating down the 
arcades of the Rue de Rivoli. The sur- 
render of the barricade Malesherbes, 
which was the way to all the approaches 
to the Madeleine, and to the whole net- 
work of barricades between us and the 
Grand Opera, had been an important 
move for the invading regulars. 

As soon as our barricade was carried 
the slaughter in the streets was dread- 
ful. The soldiers, although quite sober 
and very well disciplined, had probably 
been instructed to give but little quarter. 
Whenever there was the slightest resist- 
ance when they arrived they shot the 
men as soon as made prisoners. We 



saw six insurgents shot in the Rue Go- 
dot de Mauroi a moment after they were 
taken. Houses were searched, and any 
man found with his hands slightly black- 
ened with powder was instantly shot. 
The soldiers backed him up against the 
wall, threw a couple of men into line; 
two reports were heard, and the dead 
man's coat was stripped off and thrown 
over his head. These men were left 
lying where they fell until Wednesday 
afternoon. 

The Malesherbes barricade, first at- 
tacked at ten o'clock on Monday morning, 
was taken at five on Tuesday afternoon. 
It held out exactly thirty-one hours, during 
which time the insurgents in the central 
part of the town managed to execute de- 
fenses which otherwise they could never 
have managed. Had Montmartre not 
been taken at such an early epoch in the 
fight the Versaillais would have had 
far greater losses before reaching the 
central boulevards. This barricade was 
defended by about two hundred men, 
most of whom were very brave. The 
majority of them were killed or taken 
prisoners before reaching the boulevards. 
All the way down the Boulevard Hauss- 
mann soldiers met with the most deter- 
mined resistance. "One man, whom we 
cornered," said an Eleventh-artillery- 
man to me, "ran into a court-yard, and 
we agreed to spare him if he gave up his 
gun; but he closed his hands so tightly 
about it that we had to pry his fingers 
off one by one. Then we shot him." 
An old man of sixty, as the same artil- 
lery-man was standing at the head of 
the Boulevard Haussmann, was shot in 
sight uf his sou of fourteen, who threw 
himself on the body, and begged to be 
killed also. "It was pitiful to see." 
said the rough Lyons boy, turning quite 
pale. " We have left fifty dead men 
above here," he added; " but we shall 



482 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

be revenged down below;" and he fered but little from the projectiles thrown 

pointed to the Madeleine. from the great hill ; and early Tuesday 

Although we went into tin- streets morning the divisions of General Lad- 
tliat Tuesday evening we did not go mirault's troops, taking possession of 
farther than the barricade, as the sus- all the gates from the Porte Maillot 
pieions of the Versailles troops were very to St. Oueu, had attacked Montmartre 
strong, and they saw an escaping Com- in the rear, while the Duplessis division 
munist in every civilian. We saw a went up from the Gare St. Lazare through 
number of arrested persons taken to the the Rue d'Amsterdam. General Clin- 
Kue Boissy d'Anglais, where they were chant then sent reinforcements to all 
judged and immediately shot. We re- the exterior boulevards ; also to the Rue 
mained in-doors that night, and at early Blanche. The barricades on the Boule- 
dawn went out to find that the insurgents vard des Baliguolles, ami the streets 
had been compelled to withdraw from all entering it, were carried without much 
their positions in the neighborhood, and resistance; and at half-past nine the 
from all the central boulevards below the Versaillais entered precipitately on the 
Hue Drouot . also that they had Bred the Place Cliehy, which had been hastily 
public buildings in their line of retreat abandoned by the Communists. 
towards the Hotel de Ville. Paltering Montmartre then began firing directly 
the Kne Royale we found heaps of dead into Cliehy, and wrecked numerous 
men, and saw many of the houses on the houses in the vicinity. Women and 
right-hand side slowly burning. Fire- men fired from windows upon the regu- 
men were inducing every passer-by to lars, and were at once taken out, placed 
help, and we had to stand in line and against walls, and shot. The Mont- 
pass buckets of water, in the primitive martre cannon were finally silenced at 
Parisian fashion of extinguishing fires, ten o'clock. The regulars nattered 
before we could establish our right to themselves that they had dismounted 
pass on. The insurgents, we were told, the insurgent guns; but the truth was, 
had applied petroleum to burn the quar- that there was no more ammunition on 
ter when they found they could no longer the mountain. The Federals did not 
hold it. Here, also, we heard the story expect, to be so quickly surrounded, and 
that fifty insurgents had been bayoneted ammunition wagons blocked half-a-dozen 
in the Madeleine; but this was untrue, out-of-the-way streets. Finding their 
Several men were killed at the church, endeavors to scale the heights and bring 
but none inside the sacred walls. fresh supplies to the batteries useless, 

The formidable character of the works the drivers were shot from their horses, 
at Montmartre and the immense nnm- Four new barricades were then thrown 
ber of guns accumulated there by the up on the Place Cliehy. but only one 
insurgents had made every one in the made a determined defense, and cost 
central quarters of Paris anxious, as the the regular army a large number of 
Communists had sworn to bombard that men. The liveliest resistance was made 
section whenever the Versailles troops in the Place Blanche, when' a few Fed- 
occupied it as far as the Grand Opera, erals held out for two hours against a 
But General Clinchant's troops, who large force. One of the barricades was 
had occupied the Pare Monceau during taken by stratagem on the part of the 
the night and morning of the entry, suf- Versaillais, who entered houses directly 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



483 



above the insurgents, and from the 
windows shot down scores. On the 
Place Pigale numerous mitrailleuses 
sent destruction against the attacking 
forces, but by noon the Federals were 
driven quite to the south flank of the 
hill. Just as they were preparing for a 
new stand there the red breeches ap- 
peared <>n t Lie hill-top and wildly pro- 
claimed victory. These men belonged 
to a division of the Ladmirault Corps, 
which had swept away the batteries near 
St. Ouen and took one hundred and five 
cannon on the road. Arriving at the 
plateau on the hill-top, they found it 
deserted. The mass of the Federals 
had escaped by the streets leading to- 
wards La Chapelle. The panic in the 
retreat was frightful. The streets were 
strewn for half a mile with knapsacks, 
guns which the Communists had broken 
in their fury, with cartridges, and even 
with uniforms, which many men in their 
fright had torn off and thrown away. 
Some cowards attempted to take refuge 
in a house, but found the doors closed 
against them, and were shot down like 
dogs. The stampede was only rallied 
at La Chapelle, where barricades were 
hastily erected. The regulars occupied 
all the houses, searched the rooms, and 
whenever they found a man apparently 
fresh from the fight be was shot without 
mercy. The house of a blacksmith, in 
the Rue de Navariu, stood a severe siege, 
but finally all the defenders were taken 
and killed. At live in the evening the 
fight was still in progress on the Boule- 
vard Rochechouarl ; but before night- 
fall all the Montmartre section was in 
the power of the regular army. 

The defense of this noted hill seems 
to have been confided to General Clu- 
seret, but he had not been heard of at 
the close of the action. The story of 
General Dombrowski's death is simple 



and almost touching. The insurgent 
General was at La Muette when the 
news came that a great attack in that 
vicinity had succeeded. An orderly 
hastily brought him word that the Ver- 
saillais would probably soon surround 
the house in which he had his head- 
quarters. He at once burned bis papers 
and ran out of the building to the rail- 
way station of the Ceinture, and finally 
gained the Place Vendome. where, it 
will be remembered, was the central 
head-quarters. From that point he went 
to Batignolles, and on Tuesday was in 
the thick of the fight on Montmartre. 
While riding along the Boulevard Or- 
nano, accompanied by a large number 
of his staff officers, about noon, he was 
struck in the abdomen by a musket bul- 
let and fell to the ground. Four men 
bore the dying General, who bit the cloth 
of the stretcher in his agony, to the 
Hospital Lariboisiere, where he died 
shortly afterwards. His last words were, 
according to one version, "You see how 
one dies when he has been betrayed." 
Another account, and probably a more 
trustworthy one, given by the hospital 
aids, says that, shortly before death, he 
cried out : " And those men accused me 
of betraying them ; " then he babbled 
of his wife and child, and so passed 
away. His aides-de-camp carried off 
his body in a common wagon, after hav- 
ing theatrically sworn before the death- 
bed that they would avenge him. 

Dombrowski's melancholy exclamation 
about treason was prompted by the 
rumor which bad at one time gained 
ground in the Communist circles, that he 
had been bribed by the regulars, and 
that if he had not been corrupt the troops 
could not have entered. There is no 
foundation for this slander. Dom- 
lirowski, although misguided, was brave 
and honest. He had perhaps thought 



484 



EUROPE J.V STORM AND CALM. 



of making his way through some point of 
the Prussian lines, and escaping when 
the battle in Paris became hopeless; but 
this does uol seem clearly proved. There 
was a story that he with his "seven 
hundred horsemen" had intended to 
gallop to Belgium, cutting their way 
through any small villages which might 
offer resistance. But any one who had 
seen his seven hundred horsemen would 
know that this was absurd. Dum- 
browski's staff was mounted on omnibus 
horses, old roadsters who had already 
done their best service, and presented 
a most ridiculous appearance. In the 
whole of the Commune army there were 
not threescore men who knew how lo 
ride. 

Early Wednesday morning, just as I he 
first glimpses of dawn were visible, the 
firing in and around the Hue Royale and 
on the boulevards died quite away. The 
far-off cannon shots convinced us that 
the insurgents had retired towards the 
Louvre, and were fighting their way to 
the Bastille. We hail returned to sleep at 
the house in the Boulevard Malesherbes ; 
and at dawn, on Wednesday morning, 
we were once more in the Rue Royale. 
One side of this fine street was now 
almost entirely burnt away, and the re- 
maining walls tottered and gave forth a 
peculiar odor, as if dead bodies were 
burning within. Many of the unfortu- 
nate inhabitants were doubtless roasted 
alive in their cellars. Near the junction 
of the boulevard with the Rue Royale 
lay the body of an old man. a Com- 
munist, with a horrible wound in the 
head. Some passers-by had removed the 
covering from his face, and the open 
eyes were quite frightful to look upon. 
Farther on was the corpse of a liner, 
young and handsome. 

At an angle of the Rue Royale was 
still another victim, beaten half out of 



shape. Down at the great double bar- 
ricade, at the entrance to the Place de la 
Concorde, great crowds were collected, 
peering over at the vestiges of the tight. 
In the Place, the caryatides supporting 
the fountain basins were scarred with 
bullets, and the great statue of Lille had 
fallen from its pedestal. The beautiful 
equestrian statues at the entrance of the 
Champs Elysees had miraculously es- 
caped. Undoubtedly the barricades at 
the corner of the Rue Royale and the 
Place de la Concorde had been but poorly 
defended. A soldier of the line ran close 
by one of them on Tuesday afternoon, 
and tore down the two red tlags flutter- 
ing above it before the astonished 
insurgents could fire a shot. As he re- 
turned, a discharge of musketry burst 
from the barricade, and the courageous 
liner fell flat. A shout arose. " He is 
dead ! lie is dead ! " cried the insurgents. 
He had only fallen to escape the shots, 
and scampered back to his own liues 
unharmed. 

It having been long before determined 
among the insurgents that, if they could 
not obtain the municipal franchise of 
Paris, they should make a systematized 
attempt to burn all the public monuments 
and palaces, as well as the ministries 
and principal houses, it is not surprising 
that the Rue Royale was so readily fired. 
During the days of Monday and Tues- 
day, in various houses in the Boulevard 
Malesherbes, in the Rue de Rivoli, and 
Rue de la Paix even, little square boxes 
were placed behind the doors, or in other 
obscure corners in the court-yards. These 
hexes, when examined, were found to 
contain petroleum, so arranged that it 
could be fired at a moment's notice. A 
gentleman whose word I cannot doubt, 
one of the editors of Le Temps, told me 
that the insurgents used every pretext 
lo conceal from the inhabitants the fact 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



485 



that they were firing the houses. Had 
not the regular troops been very near at 
hand, when his house was invaded by 
the Communists, he was certain the 
latter would have succeeded in destroy- 
ing it. Men who belonged to what was 
organized as the incendiary battalion 
disguised themselves as firemen, and fed 
the flames instead of helping to ex- 
tinguish them. This sounds almost in- 
credible, but there is very good evidence 
of its truth. Men came from all quarters 
carrying bottles of petroleum and in- 
flammable matches in their pockets, and 
one's life was not worth a rush anywhere 
iu the street, as it needed only the de- 
nunciation of the first bourgeois to have 
any person shot down by the infuriated 
soldiery. As we turned to leave the 
Rue Ro3 - ale we saw a regiment of liners 
passing on to the fight at the Louvre, 
on the double-quick. The officers were 
swearing at and striking the wounded 
men, who, overloaded and stained with 
blood and covered with dust, had little 
elasticity in their steps. 

Great jets of fire were streaming up 
in the direction of the Rue St. Honor6, 
and beyond the Tuileries, and the burn- 
ing Ministry of Finances sent up flames. 
Now and then, from the latter building, 
a shower of sparks and half-burnt papers 
came drifting above us, and the air was 
hot and sulphurous. People's faces were 
blanched with a new fear, for conflagra- 



tions are so unusual at Paris that most 
citizens are frightened even at an or- 
dinary one. This gigantic series of fires, 
this wholesale destruction of property 
by the vindictive Communists, actually 
turned the heads of many people. The 
excess of sudden insanity, consequent 
on the horrors of the seven days' fight, 
was so numerous as to excite universal 
attention among medical men. 

Wednesday night will always be re- 
membered by those who witnessed its hor- 
rors as the " night of fires." Returning 
that evening to our old quarters on the 
Boulevard Malesherbes we remarked 
among the inhabitants along the route a 
feverish agitation. Every one suspected 
every one else of attempting to fire the 
house in which he lived, and the con- 
cierges were busy on the roofs with hose 
watering the walls, or below arranging 
wet mortar against the cellar windows, 
or placing barrels of water and heaps of 
sand in the court-yards. As we passed 
through the Rue Scribe we saw groups 
of soldiers marching men and women 
who were to be shot, a gun, it was said, 
having been fired from the house in 
which they had been taken. It was after 
dark when we arrived at the scene of the 
late Malesherbes fight. The streets were 
crowded with soldiery, and hardly half 
an hour passed without the rattle of 
musketry, indicating an execution at the 
military post iu the Rue Boissy d' Anglais. 



486 



EL'ROrE IS STORM AXD CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO. 



i \ _ ofF ■.■- r Petroleuses. — The 1 ■ W Pa kin F 



FROM the upper windows of our 
bouse we could see tbe great fires 
in the Rue St. Honors and ihe Rue de 
Rivoli, where shops unci houses were 
constantly fired by the daring incendiary 
brigade. Shells from tlie Buttes Chau- 
mout, where the retreated Communists 
had now erected their barricades, came 
regularly, six every five minutes (we 
counted them repeatedly), to add their 
tenuis to the rapidly increasing flumes. 
1 e burning Tuileries "still sent up tl 
lights, fantastic as a aurora borealis, on 
the horizon, and the distant clamor of 
fusillade came borne on the wicked wind 
which seemed to delight in spreading 
the flames. Officers passed beneath our 
windows, constantly enjoining the inhabi- 
tants to watch their houses with the 
greatest vigilance; we were not allowed 
to have auv lights, and had little inclina- 
tion to run the risk of a domiciliary visit, 
which might have resulted in our forced 
departure for the military post, where to 
be suspected was to be executed. 

About nine o'clock we were called to 
the garret to witness an immense new 
burst of flame, which we were told was 
ette on fire, the troops having 
lo>t no time in firing it. after having 
summoned the insurgents from the bar- 
ricades to surrender. The Hotel de 
Yille. which was now burning, added the 
vast glow of it- conflagration to the 
tacle. The accumulation i<i horror's 
for the past few days, the promenades 
among the heaps of dead and dying, the 
danger incurred bv merely walking in 



the enraged and affrighted throngs, had 
so unsettled our nerves that the sudden 
appearance of eight gendarmes in the 
garret, whence we were viewing the 
scene, almost unmanned us. In harsh 
tones they demanded why two of our 
company had mounted to the roof, and 
hade them come down at once. They 
doc tided precipitately, and we explained 
ourselves. The gendarmes having as- 
sured themselves of our nationality, re- 
tired, grumbling, and we refrained from 
further adventures in pursuit of knowl- 
edge. Xothing was left but to crawl to 
the trout windows and watch the reflec- 
tion of the flames on the sullen sky. and 
to hear the rumbling of the distant 
battle. All uightwe lay wakeful, listen- 
ing to the cries of fright Or of stern 
command. Towards one o'clock, a cry 
arose, a cry of fear and anguish of a 
woman in her last agony. It fairly 
chilled our blood. We could not refrain 
from running to the windows and listen- 
ing. It was a woman taken in the act 
of firing the street, and we heard her led 
away, protesting with hitter screams. 
••You can explain to the commandant," 
said a voice. The woman was hurried 
to the Hue Pasquier. Presently there 
was a -hot ; then all was still for a few 
moments. 

The citizens who had not sympathized 
with the insurrection began to appear 
on the streets on Wednesday. Pale 
faces peeped out here and there : shop- 
keepers t iok down from their dusty 
shutters the proclamations which the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



487 



Commune hail pasted upon them; the 
tricolor was exhibited from every window 
within the line of the regular troops; 
squads of cavalry patrolled the streets, 
and the " men of order," who had care- 
fully hidden themselves since their dis- 
comfiture in the Rue de la Paix, on the 
day of their manifestation, were out in full 
force, and beat La Ge'nerale furiously. 
All of the government people wore tri- 
color badges on their left arms. Guns 
were slacked on the pavements, and the 
shopkeepers and rentiers of the Rue de 
la Paix, instead of the marble-workers 
and masons of Belleville, now commanded 
us to passer au large. It was curious 
to notice the thirst for blood which 
these fine fellows, who might have 
stopped the insurrection at its outset, 
but who had refrained from just the 
effort necessary to check it. now mani- 
fested when the regulars had done the work. 
The Place Venddme was occupied by 
the regulars on Wednesday morning. 
The inhabitants of the quarter screamed 
with delight as every new prisoner was 
brought in. Men came with their arms 
pinioned behind their backs, and, as 
they entered the square, and passed 
out of sight of the ferocious, gaping 
crowd, a detonation would be heard, 
and all would be over. The same 
soldiers who had done the execution 
took their way back to their post of duty 
amid the acclamations of the people. 
The officers on the court-martials had an 
inductive method of getting at the truth. 
They were mild in their speech, and 
would say, "Come, now, friend, you 
might as well confess." The man, tempted 
by the kindly voice, would own up, after 
many equivocations, that he had done 
little or nothing. "Yes, but you did 
take part in the insurrection?" and 
when he answered " Yes," his doom was 
at once pronounced. 



The kindling of the fires seems to have 
given the property-holders a terrible 
thirst for blood. If any one ventured to 
say, " That man ought not to he shot: 
he looks like a weak, misguided creat- 
ure," the unhappy man who thus pleaded 
for clemency would be howled at and 
threatened with arrest if he said any- 
thing further. Faces in these days 
shone with a sort of lurid light. The 
little petty grocer and the great mer- 
chant of lace, the shopkeeper and the 
banker, seemed to think their express 
duty was now to hoot, kick, strike, and, 
if necessary, kill defenseless prisoners. 
Old women, venerable at least by their 
gray hairs, were called degrading names 
as the soldiers pushed them onto prison, 
which few left alive. In dozens of cases 
these women were simply looking after 
their husbands or sons, yet they were 
arrested <>n suspicion of endeavoring to 
tire the quarters. Many of the women 
were found with their aprons filled with 
explosive matches, and the pe"troleuse was 
a veritable personage, although her ex- 
ploits were grossly exaggerated. Dead 
men were allowed to rot uncared for, and 
vulgar passers-by pulled the coverlets 
from their faces and made unfeeling 
remarks. Our hearts seemed to revolt. 
Sometimes we could not believe our 
senses, and went about trembling with 
horror. A man coming out of a house 
at the corner of the Rue Pasquier, on 
Wednesday afternoon, was denounced 
as a Communist. He was clean, well- 
dressed, and tranquil. Ten or twelve artil- 
lery officers drew their swords and were 
about to cut him down, when it was 
decided to take him to the post in the 
opposite street. The crowd grumbled at 
this, and one old man was so angry be- 
cause the soldiers did not shoot the sup- 
posed culprit that he tried himself to 
kill him with his stout oaken stick. 



488 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Around the church of La Trinite the 
fight was especially murderous. Great 
havoc was made among the beautiful 
statues and fountains in the church 
square. The trees were almost hate and 
lealless. the fires stripping everything. 
Our vice-consul, Mr. Alcott, saw from 
his windows much of the combat, and 
describes it as appalling. A priest was 
saved by the regulars from the hands of 
the insurgents, and the poor old man 
was so overjoyed that he kissed the 
whole battalion. 

The barricade on the Place de POpera 
was composed of barrels, water-carts, 
and heaps of earth and paving-stones. 
It was so arranged as to command the 
Boulevard des Capucines, the liars 
Auber and Halevy. This, as well as 
the barricade which closed communica- 
tion between the Chaussee d'Antin and 
the boulevard, was valiantly defended 
by the One Hundred and Seventeenth 
Communist battalion. Its guns in sonic 
measure protected all the network of 
barricades between the grand boulevards 
and the key barrier on the Boulevard 
Malesherbes, and hindered the progress 
of the regular troops about twenty-four 
hours. The tight at this Opera barri- 
cade was very severe, and two officers 
of the Communist battalion, not wishing 
to leave their guns in the hands of the 
regulars, drew them off themselves, one 
by one, amid a shower of bullets. All 
the Federals were finally forced to retire, 
and then the inhabitants came out ami 
welcomed in the regulars, who descended 
by the line du Ilclder. One liner 
mounted to the top of the magnificent 
edifice of the Opera, tore down the red 
flag, and, brandishing the tricolor, placed 
it finally in the hand of the god Apollo, 
who holds up to the sunlight a golden 
lyre. 

Promenading the streets now became 



extremely dangerous. Strangers were 
treated like Parisians. The National 
Guards of Order were fretting and fum- 
ing, as if anxious for a pretext to kill 
something, and it was unsafe to reason 
with them. One man assured me that 
five thousand insurgents had been shot 
since the troops entered. 1 mildly ex- 
pressed doubts. He called out at once, 
and tried to collect a crowd about me, 
but I left him post-haste. Towards 
evening the shells fell very rapidly in 
the Place de l'Opera, and a woman who 
was going to the Place Yendonie, as a 
prisoner, was struck down by a shell from 
the Buttes Chaumont battery. Wounded 
horses added their screams to the cries 
of the wounded men. The front of the 
building in which the Washington Club 
was located was half torn away. In the 
glare of the flames from the Ministry of 
Finances, as night came on, one could see 
men and women, tied together, and bleed- 
ing from numerous wounds, marched 
along, urged forward by kicks and blows 
from musket-butts into the Place Yen- 
donie, where they were immediately shot. 
A number of French and American 
persons told me the following incident, 
which I defy any one to read without a 
certain emotion. On Thursday a very 
beautiful young girl, taken in the act of 
scattering inflammable matches against 
the houses, was marched down the Rue 
de la Paix to the Place Yendome to 
execution. She seemed quite innocent, 
and answered quite quietly when asked 
what she was doing, and what she had in 
her apron, " (July some kindlings to light 
my lire with." Her beauty, her elastic 
and courageous step, as she marched to 
execution, did not enlist the women in 
her favor. The women were much more 
terrible in their wrath than the men ; but, 
as she tinned and faced the crowd with 
flashing eye, and as her long, black hair 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



4,s«) 



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190 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



kept waving in the breeze, many a strong 
man shed tears. An implacable war of 

the | r against the rich, carried now 

tn tin' extremity of despair, made the 
fining girl march as proudly to the place 
of execution as if her cause had been 
won, and Paris were free. 

The military school on the Champ de 
Mais was a favorite place for execu- 
tions. Few prisoners who went, in there 
came out alive. As fast as the men and 
women entered the doomed precinct, the 
tramp of a tiring platoon and the dis- 
charge of a number of muskets could 
be heard. The bodies were heaped up 
so that new-comers had to climb over 
them in order to stand at the fatal wall. 
The dead were dragged afterwards to the 
Champ de Mars into trenches. The 
millions of visitors to the great Exhibi- 
tion of 1878 little thought, as they 
walked on the beautiful green grass of 
the gardens of the Champ de Mars, of 
slaughtered Communists buried below. 
Probably some one who had read Walt 
Whitman's eccentric verses might have 
thought, above the unrecognizable graves, 

of those strange lines: — 

11 Tenderly will I use you, curling grass. 

It amy be you transpire from the breasts of 

young Mien ; 
It may be if I had known them I would have 

loved them ; 
It may be yon ure from old people and from 

women, and from offspring taken too soon 

from their mothers' hips. 
They are alive and well somewhere. 
The smallest sprout shows there is really no 

death." 

The history of the burning of Paris 
has been told, both by the Communists, 
who find, in their adroit fashion, a hundred 
apologies for their action, and by the 
moderate Republicans, some of whom, 
like M. Maxime Ducamp, are a trifle 



immoderate in. their condemnation. Had 
the regular troops acted with more 
promptness, after their arrival, a great 
number of the principal buildings on tin; 
left bank of the Seine might have been 
saved from the flames. But the hesita- 
tion of the regular troops is not to he 
wondered at. The spectacle which con- 
fronted them was enough to appall the 
stoutest hearts. The great clouds of 
smoke from the smouldering Hotel de 
Aide and the Tuileries made a sombre 
background to a melancholy picture. At 
all the street coiners dead insurgents lay 
thickly, sometimes piled in little heaps. 
Asking the explanation of this, I was 
told that these were men who had escaped 
into the houses, and when found were 
taken into the street and immediately 
executed. No questions even were asked 
them when they were found with weapons 
in their hands or with powder stains on 
their fingers. The bullet sang its shrill 
song, and they fell dead. 

It is worthy of remark that in the quar- 
ter of Paris extending from the Hotel 
deVille to the Bastille, no hostility to the 
Communists was expressed by non-com- 
batants ; elsewhere the complete ferocity 
of the citizens quite surpassed anything 
manifested by the soldiers. In the Rue 
du Temple and in the Rue Vieux du 
Temple, dead men of both the Com- 
munal and regular armies were lying 
about as plentiful as broken boughs in a 
forest through which a great wind had 
passed. 

On this Wednesday evening a friend 
who walked through the Rue de Rivoli 
announced that he saw women washing 
off the sidewalk in places where the 

bl 1 had collected in little stagnant 

| Is. They sopped up the blood with 

wet lags, and, wringing it out into pails, 
carried it away into the houses. Possibly 
some enterprising speculator proposed 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



491 



to sell or to exhibit the blood of the 
victims of the May revolution. 

Around the Palais Royal, and espe- 
cially in front of the Comedie Francaise, 
the scene was heart-rending. Soldiers 
were digging trenches in the middle of 
the street, and throwing in the dead in- 
surgents. In front of the barricade in 
the Rue Montpensier as many as twenty 
were buried. Amateur grave-diggers, 
boys and men, tumbled back the dirt 
and stamped it down without a trace of 
emotion on their faces. Nearly at the 
same time some soldiers were skinning 
a horse slain by a shell, and were distribu- 
ting the meat to poor people who begged 
for it. Many members of the working- 
class suffered the pangs of hunger for 
several days during the fight, as the food 
in certain quarters was entirely carried 
off to serve the soldiers who were 
making their way into the heart of the 
insurrection. 

The Ministry of Finance, the noble 
colonnades of which occupied an im- 
mense front on the Rue de Rivoli, was 
Bred inside on Tuesday night by a 
delegation appointed expressly for the 
purpose. The archives in the fifth 
story served as kindling, and in a few 
hours the whole street line was in a blaze. 
Hut when the insurgents had evacuated 
the building, and had been compelled to 
fall back from the Place de la Concorde, 
a wine-merchant on the corner attempted 
to organize a service to save what re- 
mained of the edifice. He was shot at, 
and petroleum shells were thrown to in- 
crease the flames. Towards midnight a 
strong, wild wind came up, fanning the 
flames and discouraging hopes of saving 
anything. A few hours later an at- 
tempt was made by a few determined 
men to save the most important papers 
concerning the finances of Paris, and 
the great ledger of the city was brought 



out at the risk of their lives by five em- 
ployes. As there are a large number of 
volumes of this precious book, and these 
were stored in an upper room, a chain of 
soldiers was placed on ladders, and the 
lonies containing the whole statement of 
the city's indebtedness were passed from 
hand to hand, until they reached the 
ground. At last the fire became so hot 
that the proceedings were cut short, and 
a large number of the books were thrown 
helter-skelter into the street, whence 
they were picked up by the inhabitants 
of the quarter and packed in carriages. 

On tin' Faubourg St. Honore, one of 
of the most crowded of Parisian thorough- 
fares, the destruction was very great. 
Immense warehouses, establishments de- 
voted to articles of luxury and taste, 
flew skywards in clouds of smoke and jets 
of flame. At the entrance of the street 
nearest the Rue de Rivoli the slaughter 
was tremendous. Piled at the Rivoli 
end of the Rue du Luxembourg, on 
Wednesday morning, were one hundred 
and twenty-five dead bodies, brought 
there from various points. Curious 
throngs were constantly gathered at this 
place, and many arrests were made 
among the spectators for expressing their 
opinions too strongly. Near the corner 
of the Faubourg St. Houore and flic 
Rue Royale a wine-merchant was con- 
fined in his cellar, with his wife and little 
girl, driven thither by the intense heat 
of the houses burning around about 
them. The fusillade from the barricades 
in the Rue St. Honor<5 and from the 
Madeleine was so severe that he hardly 
dared venture through what was at best 
crumbling and red-hot ruins, to save his 
wife and child in the open air. At last 
he decided, urged by the screams of the 
child, who was almost literally roasted, 
and, clasping her in his arms, he rushed 
out through the falling walls and under 



492 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



■a storm of bullets, to a passage held by 
a small detachment of government 
troops. As he clamored at the gate for 
entrance, three men pointed their guns 
at him. " Kill me," hecried, " but save 
my child ! " The corporal, comprehending 
the situation, rushed forward and took 
the child in his arms ; and the wine- 
merchant, returning into the ruins, suc- 
ceeded in rescuing his wife also. A few 
minutes afterwards the house fell in, and 
the cellar in which those people had been 
roasting was filled with live coals. 

The damage in one house in the Rue 
Royale was estimated at 700,000 francs. 
The general staff of the insurgents had a 
grand banquet at a restaurant in this 
street on the night of the entry of the 
regular troops, and they drank confusion 
to M. Thiers in no less than three hundred 
bottles of champagne. In one of the 
houses on the corner of the Rue Royale 
and the Faubourg, those who had hidden 
in the cellars on the Monday when the 
fight began, to avoid service in the in- 
surgents' ranks, were all suffocated. 
The owner of one of the huge shops 
burned on the line Royale was found 
raving in the street on the ruins of his 
fortune. His loss had quite turned his 
brain. It was said that one of the 
fashionable clubs in this street only es- 
caped burning through the sagacity of 
some servants, who gave the soldier 
charged with the firing so much wine that 
he quite forgot his duty. 

There is no doubt that the Communists 
intended to make a complete wreck of 
the Faubourg St. Germain. Maxime Du- 
camp has left on record a very concise and 
careful narrative of the ruin of the Palace 
of the Legion of Honor, the Council of 
State, the (our des Comptes ; and it is 
startling to note with what coolness 
General Eudes and Megy, the ferocious, 
half-educated workman who became oue 



of the heroes of the Communal party, 
escorted by a quintette of women, went 
from palace to palace sowing destruction 
upon their track. The houses of rich 
refugees were invaded ; servants who 
undertook to save the pictures, the rich 
furniture, and the silver plate of their 
masters, were shot down. The •• gene- 
rals" and '•colonels," excited with 
drink, and half mad with the sense of 
coming danger, issued most extravagant 
decrees. It is even said that Megy 
signed his decrees with the number 
which had been stamped upon his prison 
uniform, as if thus casting defiance in 
the face of the society which had con- 
demned him temporarily to lose his 
citizenship, and to lie reduced to the level 
of a mere numeral. Lone- wagon-trains, 
filled with barrels of petroleum, were 
ranged in regular order in the court-yards 
of the buildings marked for burning; 
and, as the Communists retreated slowly 
up the left bank of the Seine, flyingfrom 
barricade to barricade before the ap- 
proaching vengeance of the bourgeoisie, 
they applied the torch with as much 
earnestness and joy as if they had been 
sacking an enemy's citadel. The beauti- 
ful pictures of Flandrin and Eugene De- 
lacroix were deluged with mineral oil. 
Barrels of this oil were poured down 
staircases and through corridors, and 
hundreds of thousands of manuscripts 
belonging to the archives, audited ac- 
counts, memoirs of important financial 
transactions, were trampled into the oozy 
mass into which the Communists, in 
their drunken fury, tired their revolvers 
and threw live coals and matches. M. 
Jules Yalles. who. after taking a promi- 
nent part in the Commune, escaped, 
published, shortly before the entry of 
the regular troops, in his journal, called 
the u Cri du Peuple" the following state- 
ment : '-All measures have been taken 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



193 



to prevent the entry into Paris of an}' 
inimical soldier. The ramparts may be 
battered down, but no soldiers will get 
into Paris. If M. Thiers is a chemist 
he will quite comprehend us. Let the 
army of Versailles recollect that Paris is 
decided to undertake everything rather 
than surrender." The employment of 



to find Paris a kind of second Rome, 
with ruins on every hand. In fact, the 
Cour des Comptes is almost the only 
remnaut of the Communist fury left as 
it was in that dreadful week. It is 
presently to be converted into a museum 
of industrial art. During the Commune 
it was occupied by the delegate of the 




CHILDREN OF THE COMMUNIST PRISONERS EATING SOUP WITH THE VERSAILLES SOLDIERS. 



dynamite had been suggested to the Com- 
mune ; but that powerful political agent 
had not yet attained the celebrity which 
it now possesses, and the incendiaries 
and anarchists of the epoch were obliged 
to resort to petroleum and to the torch. 
It was Tuesday evening when the 
palace of the Council of State and the 
Cour des Comptes was fired. The 
Cour des Comptes lias long been a 
place of pilgrimage for the trans-Atlan- 
tic tourists who go abroad expecting 



Council of State, who, only a few days 
before the entry of the regular troops, 
was sent to Marseilles on a revolution- 
ary mission, where he was arrested by 
agents from Versailles. It was thought 
by the regulars that the Council of State 
palace was burned by the fifty-seventh, 
sixty-seventh, and one hundred and 
thirty-fifth battalions of insurgents, who 
had occupied it; and therefore wher- 
ever these gently were found during the 
fight they received no quarter. 



4H4 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



A woman who went by the name of 
Madame Eudes, the female companion 
of tin' Communist general, gave numer- 
ous festivals at the Legion of Honor 
palace, which was her comrade's head- 
quarters, during the brief reign of the 
insurrection, and some of these festivals 
are said to have been orgies quite be- 
yond the power cit' description. Madame 
Eudes was wont to descend into the 
court-yard to shake hands with all the 
soldiers on guard, taking pains to an- 
nounce that they might converse with 
her freely, and might never salute. " I 
am a, daughter of the people," she said. 
The Puis journals related that she and 
other women connected with the Com- 
mune had pillaged the wardrobe of the 
beautiful and fashionable Marquise do 
Galliffet, and that they used to appear 
in her dresses ; but this is probablj 
untrue. 

Around the palace above mentioned, 
the line de Lille was horribly devas- 
tated by shot, shell, and tire. In the 
Faubourg .St. Germain one of the noted 
clubs was nearly wrecked by the Yer- 
saillais batteries, playing from Tro- 
cadcro. One very singular illustration 
of the damage that can be caused by a 
single bullet occurred in a mansion next 
the Agricultural club. A bullet pierced 
a reservoir in the fifth story which con- 
tained ten thousand litres of water. The 
upper story of the bouse was inun- 
dated, ami thousands of francs' worth 
of furniture injured before the owners 
below knew of the small deluge. The 
conflagration in the Rue du Lac, on the 
hit bank of the Seine, was one of the 
most disastrous caused by the despair 
and malice of the insurgents. It is said 
that General Eudes and Megy them- 
selves fired the first houses in this 
quarter, wishing to inaugurate this great 
anil formidable attack on property, and 



to have their names handed down in 
history as prime movers in these 
final tragedies. Whole houses were 
destroyed, gulleys ran up and down 
across the street, and dead bodies lay 
in the doorways and at corners, de- 
caying in the hot sun. Hereabouts, the 
ordinary method of tiring houses was 
by pouring petroleum from the windows 
oil the sidewalks, and then hurling down 
burning masses of rags or matches 
into the cellars. The Luxembourg 
palace owed its safety to the prelimi- 
nary explosion of the powder-magazine, 
established thereby. This frightened 
away a large number of men who were 
sent to lire the ancient home of the 
Medicis. The noble and beautiful Sainte 
Chapelle, where old Boileau lies en- 
tombed, miraculously escaped wreck in 
the midst of the ruin of the Palais de 
Justice. The noted prison of the Con- 
ciergerie, so famous in the old Revolu- 
tion, was badly damaged, but, the regu- 
lars came too quickly into this neigh- 
borhood to allow the complete ac- 
complishment of the Communists' evil 
designs. 

On this fatal day, the 24th of May, 
at the close of which the good Arch- 
bishop and his comrades in misfortune 
were destined lo be murdered, the 
official journal of the Commune pub- 
lished an extract from another radical 
journal, warning the insurrectionists 
againt any violence to the priesthood, 
saying that its only result would be fifty 
years more of clericalism. But tin.' men 
who might have listened to reason, had 
the regular troops still been without the 
fortifications, thought, now thai disaster 
and probable death were at their gates, 
of nothing but revenge. M. Thiers 
came into Paris on this Wednesday, and 
remained an hour, ami it is even said 
that he or Marshal MacMahou, who had 



EUROPE I.\ STORM AND CALM. 



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496 EUROrE l.\ STORM AM> CALM. 

been in Paris since the previous Sunday, principal prisoners were stationed. A 
ought to have taken more vigorous raeas- short time after this an officer advanced 
urrs to have rescued the Archbishop to the Archbishop's cell, and in a low 
from the imminent peril in which he was voice called him by name, 
placed. When the news of the execu- " The prelate answered, ' Present.' 
tion of the hostages was announced in " The officer then passed to the cell of 
the fashionable quarters along the the President Bonjean : next called the 
grand boulevards, and in the Hue de la Abbe Allard, member of the Interna- 
Paix, the excitement was very great, tioual Society for Aiding the Wounded ; a 
Men went aboul the street cursing the number of other priests ; the Abbd De- 
insurrection in loud and bitter tones, guerry, curb of the Madeleine. Xo 
and whenever a prisoner was brought in sooner had each prisoner answered to his 
on his way to the Place Vcndome, they name than lie was led through the gallery 
would rush out and strike him with their and down the staircase, and conducted to 
canes. Mr. Washburne, our American the Surveillance, on the other side, where 
minister, took constant and careful insurgent guards insulted the prisoners 
measures in the Archbishop's behalf and called them names which I cannot 
during the whole of this terrible week, repeat. 

until the fatal Wednesday night. lie ••They were then taken into the COlirt- 

himself has given a most interesting ac- yard near the infirmary. The Arch- 

count of his visits to tin' distinguished bishop advanced towards the platoon of 

prelate, and of the fortitude and sweet- execution, which he clearly saw at a 

ness of temper displayed by him in such little distance from him. and, speaking 

circumstances of deadly peril. A little very quietly, addressed a few words of 

energy, which had been lacking in France pardon. Two men at once ran up to 

since the creation of the Second Empire, him. and before their comrades, kneeled, 

might have saved the worthy Archbishop imploring his blessing. The other in- 

froni the horrors of a brutal death. The surgents then fell upon them and pushed 
most remarkable version of the execu- them back, insulting them. The cona- 
tion of the Archbishop and his compan- mandant in the yard swore a frightful 
ions was given on the authority of a Mr. oath. ' Men.' he said, 'you are here to 
Girard, who succeeded in escaping from shoot these people, and not to listen to 
the prison where the prelate had been and howl with them ! ' The insurgents 
confined. He said, " Monsigneur 1 >arboy then obeyed the orders to load their guns. 
occupied cell number twenty-one of the " The Abbe' Allard was placed against 
fourth division (this was at the cele- the wall first and fell dead. Monseign- 
brated prison of Mazas), while I was cur Darboy then calmly took his place. 
confined in number twenty-six. The and fell, almost without a groan. The 
Archbishop had been allowed a table si\ prisoners were thus shot, only the 
and a chair. — furniture of which the other Abbd Deguerrv showing a moment's 
cells were destitute. On the 24th of feebleness, which must be attributed to 
May, at half -past seven in the evening, the state of his health. 
the director of the prison, a certain Le- ■•The bodies were at once conveyed in 
francais, who had been six years a gal- a railway van to the cemetery of Pere 
ley slave, came into the prison with fifty La Chaise, where they were placed in 
men, and occupied the gallery where the what is called the ' common ditch ; ' and 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



497 



the mangled corpses were left uncovered. 
The platoon of execution was taken 
from the One Hundred and Eighty-first 
and Two Hundred and Sixth Battalions 
of the National Guards, which accounts 
for the ferocity shown by the liners 
against the men of these battalions when 
lain- on they were brought in as pris- 
oners." 

Not less brutal and infinitely more 
affecting is the recital of the massacre 
of the Dominican brothers at tin- prison 
in the Avenue d'ltalie. The story is 
told by the only one of the brethren 
who escaped. These twelve apostles 
of patient, unrequited labor — men 
of excellent intelligence and education 
— had been arrested at a school in 
Paris. The nuns employed as teachers 
in this school were sent to the prison for 
common women, and the brethren to the 
fort of Bieetre, where they were lodged 
in the casemate. They were then 
brought into Paris ; and while being taken 
through the Gobelins quarter they were 
several times threatened witli death by 
the populace, but were finally broughl to 
the above-mentioned prison. About 
two o'clock on Thursday, as they were 
praying together, an officer entered and 
said grossly, "Surplices, forward! you 
are to be conducted to the barricades." 
They followed mutely, and found at the 
barricade such an intense fire that the 
inhabitants abandoned it, taking back 
their victims witii them. About an 
hour afterwards they were again sum- 
moned to the street, and here an officer 
of the One Hundred and First Battalion 
ordered his men to load their muskets, 
and then came the cry: '•Enter the 
street one by one ! " 

They knew this was their death-war- 
rant, and therefore took adieu of each 
other. "Come, brethren," said the 
father prior, " come to the good God I " 



and lie went out, shutting the door after 
him. A shot was heard, and the next 
brother who went out saw, as he felt the 
fatal bullet, the venerable prior bathed 
in blood. The brother who escaped 
only succeeded by simulating death, a 
bullet having grazed him, and he laid 
quietly among the slain until the execu- 
tioners had gone away, when he ran 
into a side street, where a charitable 
woman concealed him until the arrival 
of the Versailles troops. 

On the Tuesday after the entry of the 
regulars, the two hundred other host- 
ages confined in Mazas prison were 
taken to La Roquette, known as the 
prison of the condemned. On the fol- 
lowing day seventy-four were shot, and 
out of two hundred and four gendarmes 
confined in other prisons, one hundred 
and sixty-nine had been designated for 
execution. On Thursday the Versailles 
troops arrived just in time to save them. 
It will be seen from this that it is not 
too much to say that the Commune, at 
its close, was on the verge of inaugurat- 
ing a reign of terror. 

It is but justice to add that all the 
high military officers of the Commune — 
all who merited the name of officer — 
considered the arrest of the priests as 
an outrage, and understood how com- 
pletely the damning violence used 
against these good men would react 
upon the insurrection. General Clu- 
seret had especially incurred the Com- 
munists' displeasure because of his 
intervention in the cause of the Arch- 
bishop. It was frequently said during 
the insurrection that the Communists 
intended to take and hold the corre- 
spondents of foreign journals resident in 
Paris ns hostages, and M. Miot, a pict- 
uresque figure in the Communal as- 
sembly, once actually proposed this 
measure. Whether the Communists 



498 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

imagined that by this they could control journalist was shot on the evening of 
opinion may now never lie known. The the 24th of May, Raoul Rigault stand- 



i ;•„ 



murder of Gustave Chaudey, one of the ing by the executing platoon vvitl 
editors of the " Si£cle," who had been drawn sword, and cursing the men be- 
held as a hostage, seems to have been cause they did not do their work more 
actuated by a desire for vengeance on rapidly. 

the part of Raoul Rigault, the celebrated The military operations of the govern- 

Communist chief of police. Chaudey ment in Paris lasted exactly seven days, 

was confined at St. Pelagie, the old [ni- hour for hour. The entry of the firsl 

peiial prison for journalists and political troops was effected on the afternoon ot 

offenders, and his friend, Cernuschi, the Sunday. May -'1st , at four o'clock. On 

noted Italian, who has adopted Paris as that eventful day they were traversing 

his home, came very near to violent the bridge at the Point du Jour, and at 

death himself at the hands of the en- four o'clock on Sunday, May the 28th, the 

raged soldiery when he went to intercede last insurgent barricade at Belleville was 

for Chaudev's life. The unfortunate taken. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



499 



CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE. 

The New Pight of the Bastille. — The Hotel ile Ville. — The Picturesque and Dramatic Episodes of the 

Ureal Battles. 



rpHE red flag fluttered at the top of 
J- the column in the Place de la Bas- 
tille until late Saturday afternoon. Mer- 
cury, who seemed springing lightly from 
his elevated perch, up and away from 
bloodshed and burning, held the ban- 
ner, which could be distinctly seen 
from many poiuts in the centre of the 
city, while the fight was still raging 
around the site of the < > 1 < I Bastille. 

Once driven from the barricades around 
the Hotel de Ville, the insurgents made 
up their mind to a desperate stand in 
the quarters of the city where the in- 
surrection was horn. No one attempted 
to revive the historic ferocity of the 
Faubourg Saint Antoine ; not even the 
feeblest resistance was made there. 
Belleville, the Buttes Chaumont and the 
cemetery of Pere La Chaise were selected 
as the localities in which to make the 
lasteffort. Thepeopleof La Villette had 
been driven nearly to desperation during 
the third and foui Ji days of the fight, 
by the return upon them of the beaten 
insurgents from Montmartre and its 
environs, and the determined efforts of 
the troops to dislodge them. Many 
houses at La Villette were burned, and 
dozens of innocent people lost their 
lives by shot and shell coming from Hie 
batteries and barricades of both com- 
batants. OnWednesday the shells from 
Montmartre did terrible execution at 
Belleville; but the Communists, feeling 
Strong in the knowledge that the bar- 
ricades of tin' Chateau-d' Eau were stiil 



held, refused to retreat, although en- 
treated by hundreds of families, who 
saw almost imminent death before them. 
Suspicion began, however, to do its terri- 
ble work among the Bellevillians, ami 
the officers found every morning that 
sonic man had been shot by his com- 
rades for having ostensibly aided the 
enemy. On Thursday, an artilleryman 
came to a battery at a little distance 
from his own, and pointed a gun or two. 
lie was immediately arrested and shot, 
the men who did the deed insisting that 
he was a Versaillais in disguise. < In 
this same day, also, quite an expedition 
was organized with the hope of retaking 
Montmartre, but the men finally refused, 
considering it certain death, and that 
their principal duty was to " defend their 
hearthstones." On Friday there was a 
grand procession of priests going to 
execution through Belleville — a species 
of parody of the great triumphal rides 
to the guillotine of '93. There were 
twelve priests and a few gendarmes, say 
the eye-witnesses, and the unfortunate 
hostages were shot in the Luc Haxo, 
with quite a crowd looking on. Friday 
night the terror which had electrified the 
aristocratic quarters on Tuesday and 
Wednesday had spread t < > Belleville, 
and the Grand Locks, or Custom House 
of Paris, was in flames. The fire spread 
rapidly to the borders of the grand canal, 
on which the dock-, arc situated, and 
whole magazines, filled with oil and other 
combustibles, went up in slice! s of \ el low 



. r >00 EUROPE /.V STORM AND CALM. 

flame. Toward midnight, large detach- bullets) in such profusion that I con- 
mcnts of Communists arrived <>n the sidered ii prudent to retire. The barri- 
seene of the conflagration. Few such cade built across the boulevards at the 
miserable and heart-rending processions Porte St. Martin Theatre was one of 
have ever been seen on the pavements of the strongest erected, but on Wedues- 
Paris. [laggard, worn, frightened at day night, when the cannonade had 
the death only a few hours distant, dirty, weakened the defenses, the Communist 
hungry, and many of them drunk, the leaders gave orders for the burning of 
officers found it difficult to rally the men the quarter, and the celebrated theatre 
to retreat. "Let ns lie down and die." of the Porte St. Martin, and many other 
said they ; and many preferred to remain noted mansions near it, were burned 
and " see the people's vengeance exe- to the ground. The light continued 
cuted," meaning the tires. through the night at the Chateau d'Eau, 
The defense of the approaches to the and on Thursday morning the unfortu- 
liastille was very thorough and strongly nate defenders heard that the Pantheon 
kept up. Barricades at the entrance of had been taken after a desperate struggle ; 
the Boulevard de Strasbourg bad been that the Gobelins had been surrendered, 
taken by the regulars, but the insurgents and that a strong column was now operat- 
had intrenched themselves in the Eastern ing in that remote quarter of Paris, 
Railway station, at the head of that covering the ground with corpses, and 
boulevard, and made a terrible light, shutting up one of the most effectual 
When they wen- at last dislodged, it was avenues of escape. The forts of liieetre 
at the cost of much life on both sides, and Ivry, which the Communists had 
At the Chateau d'Eau the resistance took boasted of as final strongholds, were 
on tremendous proportions, owing to the thus taken out of the insurgent bands, 
presence of some of the leaders of the and the garrisons were called upon to 
Commune and the desperation of the surrender at discretion. Bicfitre's com- 
insurgents as point after point was swept mander refused, and the fort was taken 
away. They bad established powerful by assault; while General Wrobleski, 
batteries in this grand square, which lias after submitting to a desperate bombard- 
in it one of the largest barracks in Paris, ment, blew up bis powder magazine, and 
and a huge structure known as the con- then surrendered six thousand men into 
solidated shops, which was partially the hands of those from whom they could 
burnt during the fight. The boulevards expect no mercy. 

from the Chateau d'Eau down to the Rue It would hardly serve the purpose of 
Royale showed how tierce was tin 1 this narrative to recount fully tin 1 ma- 
shower of missiles that the insurgents nieuvres by which the whole of the left 
sent, 'frees were mown down, lamp- bank of the Seine was finally, on Tlinrs- 
posts cut short off, fronts of houses taken day, put into the possession of the gov- 
out, whole roofs sunk in, statues disem- eminent troops. The tragic interest 
bowelled, and cafis gutted. I was at deepens with startling intensify from the 
(he barricade of the Porte St. Denis, moment when the Hotel dc Yille. a 
held by the government troops, on flaming ruin, was surrounded on three 
Thursday afternoon, at four o'clock, and sides by the regulars. Thenceforward, 
the insurgents were then throwing bottes the history of the Commune's resistance 
i) mitraille (shells containing an hundred is filled with nothing save disaster, which 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



501 



Followed fast and followed faster," 

until the sullen culmination. 

The Hotel de Yille was then encom- 
passed thus : Towards the Seine, the 
corps of Genera] Oissey had earned 



of Marshal MacMahon would have 
triumphed; the insurgents would be 
crowded back into the narrow tract of 
the Buttes Chaumont and Pere la Chaise, 
and would lie crushed between the Prus- 
sians and the converging effort of the 
the barricades of the Pont Neuf and whole regular army. 
taken possession of the island and the The Chateau d'Eau was, therefore, the 
cathedral of Notre Dame , on the right, last point of central resistance. The 




BURNING OF THE HOTEL HE VILLE. 



the troops had attacked a barricade 
defended well for a time at the Pointe 
St. Eustache, and after encountering a 
frightful resistance had carried it ; and 
the middle column, coming straight tow- 
ard the late stronghold of rebellion, had 
already passed the Louvre. 

Nothing was left, then, for the insur- 
gents hut to make their grand, bold stand 
at the Chateau d'Eau. Once lost there. 
they knew that the military movements 



regulars did not hesitate to call it the 
" Key to Belleville." 

On Thursday the approaches of the 
regular army may be resumed as fol- 
lows: The corps of Generals Clinch- 
ant and Douay rallied by the boulevards 
of Magenta, St. Denis, and St. Martin, 
and from the Temple quarter. <>n the 
[eft wine-, Ladmirault's corps operated 
against La Chapelle and La Villette, and 
General Vinov, crossing the Seine with 



502 



EUROPE IX STD/ni AXD CALM. 



Paris, ."> Prairial, An 7a. 



his men, was creeping towards the lias- papers n number of orders, of which the 

tille, quite in the rear of the Chateau following is a fair specimen: — 
d'Eau. 

All around the gigantic square, and in Citizen Milliere, at the head of one hun- 

it, the carnage was fearful. Thursday dred and fifty fuseens, will burn the suspected 

after] n and evening the struggle cul- houses and all the public monuments on the 

, . , , i-i lil bank of the Seine. 

initiated. <)u tin- barricade, triday ° . . 

( iii/rn Vesimer, with nity men, is specially 

morning, amid a heap of twenty or tinny r|i;ip , r(| wUh ,,„. boul( , vimis ,■,,,„, lh( , Made . 

other corpses, the body of Delescluze leine to the Bastille. 

was pointed out. lie was dressed in These citizens must arrange with the chiefs 

simple morning costume, with polished "' the barricades for the execution of the 

boots and beaver hat, and had evidently orders - 
prepared himself with care, thinking that 
he would be captured. He was killed 

at the barricade, while urging on his men This order is signed by Delescluze, 
to a more energetic resistance. The Ranvier, Vesiuier, Brunei, and Dombrow- 
ball, which struck him in the forehead, ski. Others concern the burning of 
killed him instantly. Delescluze seems houses from which people might have 
never to have made any attempt to go been seen firing upon the barricades, 
away. He intended to die at his post, The bodies were strewn so thickly 
and did so. For days before he was about the square of the Chateau d'Eau 
compelled to Bee from the Ministry of that on Sunday, three days after the 
War he hardly ever quitted his work- capture of the locality, many corpses 
room. He threw himself on a mattress were still lying under the branches of 
which laid upon the floor near his work- trees, which had been strewn to impede 
table, and took little naps of half an the enemy's progress. Severe hand-to- 
hoiir's duration, then cast himself again hand fighting occurred at the Porte St. 
with fury on his task. His counte- Martin, or not far from the square, <>n 
nance in death bore a painful expres- this Thursday. One young man, who 
sion of mute despair. He was an old hail ensconced himself in a sort of re- 
man, who had been roughly used in the cess in the arch, from whence, high 
world, whose kindness had been turned above the crowd, he could lire at his lei- 
to bitterness by exile, and whose health sure upon it. remained in his perch after 
had been completely broken by mental his companions had retreated, and killed 
and physical suffering. His men seem half-a-dozen soldiers before the regulars 
to have made no effort to remove succeeded in getting up where they could 
his body, and the regulars found it shoot him. The insurgents piled their 
Friday morning. Delescluze was [den- dead bodies in veritable revolutionary 
tided by the fact that a very peculiar style on the barricades; and when the 
cane, which he was known to have car- tremendous artillery duel of Thursday 
ried twenty years, was "rasped in the night was over, the spectacle was sick- 
dead man's stiffened hand. ( )n his per- enillg. Cluseret was said to have been 
son were found a large number of letters, shot on Thursday evening, in the retreat 
some of which were from women, warn- from the barricades of the Porte St. 
ing him thai he ran risk of being poi- Martin ; but he mysteriously made his 
soned, etc. There were also among his appearance at the apartment of an old 



EUEOTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



503 



and aeutral friend on that day, sub- 
sequently escaped from the walls of 
Paris, and now lives in Constantinople. 
A friend of mine, on whom he called, 
told me that, finding nothing could be 
done in that quarter for his safety, Clu- 



seret rose coolly, gave a pleasant smile 
and hand-shake, and marched down the 
staircase as if going to breakfast, al- 
though his life would not have been 
worth a, rush if any one had chanced to 
recognize him outside the house. 



504 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR. 

The Retreat from the Chateau d'Eau. — Ruins of the Hotel do VUle. — The Burning of Important Papers. 
— Piquet. — The Thinl Period of the Greal Seven Daj s' Fight.— Al the Buttcs < liaumont. 

THE regulars took sixty mitrailleuses of some of these cellars would lie startled 

at the Chateau d'Eau, and eon- by the inroad of excited soldiers, seeking 

veved them to the Place de la Bourse, an antagonist who had taken refuge in 

where they were proudly exhibited as the house. .V word, a retort in such a 

conquered arms. The cannon which case, was enough to procure fur one's 

the insurgents employed during the self a speedy execution, with one's face 

thirty-six hours of their defence at this turned to the wall of his own house. 
point did fearful execution on the houses Friday morning the retreat from the 

at the Porte Saint-Martin side. Dozens Chateau d' Eau was consummated. The 

of Communists hid in houses along the army's task was now comparatively easy. 

square during tin' retreat, and were It consisted in surrounding the insur- 

t'erreted out and shot as fast as found, gents at the extreme end of the city, at 

The great fountain in the middle of the a point where they could not hope to 

square was filled with petroleum, and a escape from the walls, and forcing them 

solid shot had knocked one of the gigan- to unconditional surrender, 
lie bronze lions into the oily pool. The Friday morning the same unvarying 

cross fire under which the regular troops sunshine; the same thunder of cannon; 

had to traverse the place was horrible, terrorism concerning incendiaries, and 

Many a red breeches was killed in the the red Hag still Hying from the Bastille 

march over the scattered houghs. column. 

The light had continued up the grand The Hotel de Ville was a lovely ruin. 

Boulevard Sebastopol all day Thursday, Four essentially popular and successful 

ami down the Boulevard Magenta from governments have been installed there, 

the church of Saint-Laurent, so recently The first was the "Commune" of the 

made famous by the pretended discovery last century, which, majestic and fero- 

of skeletons of voung girls there. Can- cious, occupied the halls from the 10th 

non from all sides poured shot and of August, 1792, to the 27th of July, 

shell into the retreating insurgents, and, 1793. The second was the Provisional 

plunging through the roofs of houses, government of '48, from February -I to 

murdered people, who asked nothing May I. The third was the government of 

better than to llv from the scene of such National Defense, which, founded on the 

honors. Many citizens actually died ruins of (he Second Empire, dragged 

from flight during the combat. The out a shifty existence in a time of siege 

most reliable accounts say that, some and starvation ; and the fourth was tin' 

starved to death in the cellars to which last Commune of Paris, which violently 

they were driven by fear of the shells; took possession of the Hotel on the 19th 

and sometimes the harmless occupants of Match, 1871, and left the edifice in 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



505 



flames on the "2:id of May. This 
great Communal monument owes the 
placing of its corner-stone to the pro- 
vost of merchants under Francis I. 
The ceremony occurred on the 15th 
of July, 1533, and the ground had 
then but just been cleared of the ruins 
of the famous Maison aux Fibers, which 
dated among the most ancient buildings 
of the city. Dominique Baccaro was 
the architect who designed the pristine 
form of the structure, and Jean Asselin, 
" Master of Public Works to the City," 
was charged witli the execution. In 
1550 only one story was completed, and, 
strangely enough, the civil wars which 
then desolated France were the main 
cause of a delay which little pleased the 
architects. Finally, in 1605, new minds 
modified the long-neglected designs, and 
the Hdtel gradually took form. Two 
centuries after, in 1801, the church-hos- 
pital of the Holy Spirit, and the Com- 
munion of the Church of St. John 
were consolidated with the Hotel de Yille 
edifice, and thirty years after the work 
of demolishing all the houses in the 
immediate vicinity was undertaken. It 
lasted five years, and tin' result was one 
of the finest architectural effects in Paris. 
Napoleon III. increased this effect by 
widening the space, and by making the 
modern buildings around the ornate and 
romantic old Hotel of an extreme sim- 
plicity. The interior of the building was 
much more richly ornate than are any of 
the Gallic palaces. Each chief of the 
Parisian municipality had for centuries 
devoted his attention to enriching the 
various halls with memorials of his time. 
Painting, sculpture, and furniture here 
all spoke the languages of an hundred 
previous decades and thousands of indi- 
vidual tastes. The arms of Paris — a 
galley floating — with the legend Fluc- 
tudt wee mergitur, were, it is supposed, 



carried away before the flames broke out 
in the Hotel de Yille. Possibly, how- 
ever, the Communists preferred to have 
even that precious memento destroyed, 
because it had a taint of Csesarism. 

In this building, so many years ago 
that only great troubles cause tin- re- 
membrance of it. Mirabeau stood up and 
said, " I consider the National Guard of 
Paris an obstacle to the reestablishment 
of order. Most of its chiefs are mem- 
bers of the Jacobins, and, carrying the 
principles of that Society among their 
soldiers, they leach them to obey the 
people as the prime authority. These 
troops are too numerous to take any 
esprit tic corps; too wedded to the citi- 
zens to allow the least latitude to royal 
authority ; too feeble to oppose a grand 
insurrection; and too facile to corrupt, 
not en masse, but individually, not to lie 
an instrument always at the will of the 
factions." 

What Mirabeau said then was strictly 
true of the National Guard which 
Father Thiers decided to dissolve. The 
Hotel de Ville in ruins; the National 
Guard dissolved and disarmed; the 
Communal Committee of Public Safety 
dispersed or dead ; the generals of the 
guards lying on hospital stretchers or 
heaps of corpses; the final, grand, 
desperate efibrt of the people shaping 
itself in the " eccentric quarters." All 
was, indeed, over. 

That same day, after the fight had 
begun at Belleville, a captain of regu- 
lars, after having, with his men, con- 
quered a barricade, found one of the 
many prisoners who were to lie shot ap- 
pealing to him. •• Listen, captain !" 
said he : " I have a watch in my pocket 
which belongs to the concierge across the 
way. He gave it to me for safe-keeping 
several days ago. Let me return it be- 
fore I die ! " 



506 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

The captain had before him a little ary leaders. He could find money, by 

black-eyed lad of fifteen, erect, and legitimate or violent means, when no 

evidently nol afraid. He thought the one else could. The "delegate to t lie 

poor child desired a pretext for escape, Ministry of Finances," Jourde, only 

and. tired of his bloody work, he said : obeyed Piquet. lie was also extremely 

•• Yes. begone, little scoundrel ! " violent in his desires for an attack on 

lint just as the captain and his platoon property, and had formed the plan of 

of executioners had taken the lives of burning all the papers of the various 

the other prisoners, the lad came back, credit societies, the notaries, and the 

running, placed himself before the great corpora I ions, that the Paris world 

bloody wall, and said, "Here I am — might start anew, lie desired to level 

ready!" everything, believing that the iniquities 

No soldiers would tire at him, and the of society arose from the unequal dis- 

captain once more dismissed him, tears tribution of property and the tyrannies 

standing in eyes, which opened wide at connected with the manipulation of large 

such exhibition of nobility of character, capital. 

Promenading among .lie ruins of One day, almost immediately after his 

Wednesday ami Thursday was not, es- plan for burning all these immensely 

pecially safe, but productive of much valuable papers had been mentioned in 

reverv. One remembered the great re- the Commune, a well-known French 

view that took place before the Hotel de gentleman, having no sympathy with the 

Ville a month before, and the "rand old insurrection, but to whom Piquet was 

lace of tlie enthusiastic Miot (the pa- deeply indebted for past services, went 

triarch of the Commune) inspiriting the to see the fiery attacker of property. 

soldiers. How the songs rang, how the lie was accompanied by an American, 

old man and his comrades embraced the to give character to his visit, which he 

officers, and how tin 1 columns marched feared might result in his arrest and in- 

away into black annihilation and the earceration as an hostage. Piquet re- 

execrations of tin- mobs of bourgeois ceived him with the most friendly cor- 

and the commercial people of Paris! dialitv. ami after the gentleman had 

One of the remarkable men of this broached the delicate subject, the Corn- 
great insurrection was Napias-Piquet, muuist said : 

formerly a barrister at Troyes, and. at "Yes, we intend to burn every paper in 

the opening of the Commune drama, every important business establishment, 

perhaps fifty-five years old. lie was public and private, all archives, and 

tall, handsome, with sparkling eyes, and every record which has any value to the 

an intense vivacity of manner which rich and those who have been powerful." 
only the foreigner who has lived in lint here the Frenchman delicately in- 

France can understand. Piquet was terposed the thought that tin 1 Commune 

placed in the delicate and dangerous would do much (letter to carefully put 

position of Mayor at 1'assy, during the its seals upon all buildings containing 

latter days of tin' insurrection. He these papers, and to preserve the records 

had. however, not only power there, but of the iniquities of property-holders and 

was of much weight in the Commune corporations, and then to publish to the 

councils. To him was largely due the world in future pamphlets all tin 1 docu- 

financial promptness of the insurrection- mentary evidence of what he (Piquet) 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



507 



asserted. To this the Socialist did not 
desire at first to listen, but lie finally 
said lie would consider it, and next day 
seals were placed ou all offices of nota- 
ries, corporations, public and private, 
etc. 

Then came the crushing stroke of 
MacMahon's entry, and the Frenchman 
win) had reasoned with Piquet had, by a 
little stroke of finesse, saved to Paris 
the destruction of papers involving in- 
terests of thousands of millions of 
francs. Had he attempted to threaten 
Piquet, he would have incurred the 
greatest danger ; but he simply persuaded 
him to procrastination. 

Piquet was among the first to fall un- 
der the bullets of the Versailles soldiery. 
His loss was one of the great discour- 
agements for those who proposed to 
continue the desperate struggle. 

The burning of the Palace of Justice, 
on the Quai de l'Horloge, was the sequel 
to the destruction of the Prefecture of 
Police. The latter edifice hail been pre- 
pared for burning on the very first days 
that the Commune came into power, as 
not a member of the insurrection in- 
tended that the ancient Imperial inquisi- 
tion should have any place to repose 
when it came back. On Wednesday 
night, the 24th, when the regulars were 
rapidly coming towards them, the dele- 
gate Ferre was busily engaged in dis- 
tributing money to lie carried to the 
defenders of the barricades, when the 
news came that he must fly. Rigault, 
the prefect, was wandering about the 
prisons, choosing victims on whom to 
retaliate for the indiscriminate shooting 
of the Communist prisoners. Ferre, 

before leaving, took down his 1 k of 

prisoners. First on the list w'as the 
name of one condemned to death ac- 
cused of having given money for illegiti- 
mate purposes to certain members of 



the National Guard. The other prison- 
ers were released, but Vaisset, the con- 
demned, was shot at tin' foot of the 
statue of Henry IV., and his body 
was thrown into the Seine. The Pre- 
fecture was then fired, and certain loud 
explosions showed that the insurgents 
intended the work to he thorough. The 
" Sainte-Chapelle," which had been 
especially marked for vengeance, re- 
mained absolutely untouched, and still 
stands, revealed in the beauty which had 
long been concealed in the quaint courts 
of the Palace of Justice. 

The third period of the great seven 
days' light in Paris properly begins with 
the afternoon of Friday, May 26th, and 
ends at four o'clock ou the afternoon of 
Sunday, the 28th. During that time 
several hundred prisoners were executed, 
the majority of them without trial, and at 
least ten thousand wen.' inarched through 
the streets of the city, followed by how- 
ling mobs, I'n route for Versailles. General 
Vinoy, who commanded the reserve 
forces, had, while the tremendous strug- 
gle at the Chateau d'Eau was in progress, 
made his wav with but little lighting into 
the Faubourg St . Antoine. Inasmuch as 
the active forces got to Belleville much 
sooner than General Vinoy had antici- 
pated, he suddenly found himself in a 
very important part of the action, and 
cooperated with much energy, uniting on 
the Seine the corps of General Douay and 
General Cissey. Alter the taking of the 
Hotel de Ville, he was in the first line; 
and while General Douay was striving to 
occupy the boulevards from the Chateau 
d'Eau to the Bastille, Vinoy was preparing 
to attack the insurgents in Hank. I ha \ e 
already described the burning of various 
important public buildings at Belleville as 
the insurgents retreated, but this in no 
way checked the progress of the regulars, 
who, on Thursday afternoon and evening, 



508 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

were vigorously attacking the rebel line in this quarter the people had evi- 
ct' defense on the Lynns and Vinceunes dently taken hold in earnest, for very 
railways, and who finally carried, with few of the combatants wore any uni- 
sinali loss, the barricade under the grand forms. Not far from this scene of 
viaduct ou the Boulevard de Mazas. slaughter stands the historic house where, 
The insurgents attempted to burn the in 1848, the most decided resistance in 
Lyons railway station during their retreat, Paris was made. The old mansion still 
but failed. bears marks of these terrible cannon- 
The Place de la Pastille had always ades, and its second baptism of lire has 
been considered by the Communists as made the inmates unwilling to rest 
one of their principal strongholds. Its within its shaky walls. The .streets 
position is naturally good for defense, here, as elsewhere, had the appearance 
and was exceptionally strengthened by of a battle-field ; and the corpses of men 
barricades on all the avenues which led and women lay neglected for two days. 
up to the grand "Column of. Inly," such General Vinoy quietly continued worm- 
as the Boulevard Beaumarchais, the Rue ing his way from the Place du Trdne 
St. Antoine, and the three now cele- until Friday, when he came upon a knot 
brated streets, lines de Charenton, du of barricades on the Boulevards Prince 
Faubourg du Temple, and de la Roquette. Eugene, Philippe-Auguste, and de 
In these important commercial highways Charonne. Here was a handful of brave 
occurred one of the most sanguinary men who reasoned against Fate, and 
combats in the records of street fighting, persisted in supposing that their fellows 
The insurgents, driven to despair, made were gaining ground in the centre of 
a fortress of every house and fought the city. They were carried on Friday 
from its windows, until the invading evening. The defenders were put to 
soldiery came to kill them and throw death, and some of the houses near at 
their mutilated bodies into the streets, hand were burned. General Vinoy 
Although the barricades at each entrance camped that night, under a raking lire, 
of the three streets were continually at the foot of the green and lovely hills 
tottering under the fearful shocks of the which bear within their immemorial 
solid shot from the regulars' cannon, breasts the most celebrated dead of Paris, 
they were rebuilt hour by hour, ami a — he was before Peiv La Chaise. 
Gavroche of '71 was always found to At this celebrated cemetery, and the 
replant the red flag high over the paving- Buttes Chaumont, the superb park for 
stones as often as an arl fill sharp-shooter whose beauty Napoleon III. did so 
brought it down. Finally, the troops much, the insurrectionists made their 
"tinned" the barricades, invading on hist stand within the town, 
the east the Faubourg St. Antoine. The most reliable accounts admit that 
and those unfortunates who had been thirty thousand men, women, and chil- 
flyiug from the Chateau d'Euu found dren, who had been directly engaged in 
themselves in the midst of a new deroute, the fighting at Belleville, were finally 
than which nothing could be more com- surrounded in the cemetery, and hun- 
plete. On what has been named the dreds of these were massacred. I fre- 
Charenton barricade, one hundred and quently heard well-to-do people, with 
five corpses were found. Many were whom I am personally acquainted, miv 
those of old men poorly dressed; and that they hoped that not one of the thirty 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



509 



thousand would escape alive. The 1 lat- 
teries of the insurgents, placed on a high 
slope in the middle of the cemetery, com- 
manded the Opera quarter, and had been 
firing sharply at every place whence 
smoke and flame issued for the past two 
days. On Friday the artillerymen di- 
rected their attention to the assistance 
of their brethren in the Faubourg du 
Temple, and stray shells came whizzing 
intol he Central Markets. The " great dam- 
age done by these shells to property" is a 
figment of aristocratic imagination; even 
the respectable Paris journals admit that 
they lit but few tires. They wounded and 
killed, however, a great many inoffensive 
citizens. The Communists had made an 
immense collection of ammunition at 
Belleville, and having at their command 
about two hundred cannons, huge and 
small, at first disdained the very correct 
fire which was poured into their batteries 
from Montmartre heights, only three 
thousand Ave hundred yards distant. As 
last as cannon were dismounted, fresh 
ones were brought up, until the marines 
on Montmartre wrung their hands and 
swore that the Devil was aiding the an- 
tagonists on the Buttes. 

Friday evening, Paris, which, say the 
Prussians, had been completely envel- 
oped in smoke for the three previous 
davs, was illuminated by a vast con- 
flagration, which set the whole anguish- 
stricken city out in bold relief against a 
frowning and angry sky. All the in- 
habitants of the suburban towns at once 
imagined that the final coup had arrived, 
and that the insurgents had tired the 
whole town. Hence the wildness of the 
reports which reached England and 
America on Saturday and Sunday. 

The final attack was ready. While 
old General Vinoy took fitful rest in his 
dangerous quarters, General Ladmi- 
rault had executed a movement similar 



to that which brought Vinoy to Pen- I, a 
Chaise, and the two army corps were 
simultaneously in position in the rear of 
Pere La Chaise and the rear of the 
Buttes Chaumont. The troops of Lad- 
miraiilt's corps came out on the Place de 
la Rotonde, the central position of La 
Villette, having arrived by the Rue de 
La Fayette and the Boulevard de la 
Chapelle. The insurgents, tinned to the 
left after a vigorous defense, retired to 
the Docks ; — then came the conflagration 
of Friday evening. 

On Saturday morning the Communists 
found themselves shut in to Belleville 
in a semicircle, the two extremities of 
which leaned on the ramparts, and I he 
bend of which followed the boulevards 
from the Bastille to the Chateau d'Eau, 
and extended along the grand canal from 
the Faubourg du Temple to the Place de 
la Villette. It rained ; men were tram- 
pled into the mud by others advancing; 
the dead were horrible to contemplate. 

At the left, on the Buttes Chaumont, the 
observer, with a good field-glass, could 
see a garden, the surface of which had 
been ploughed by descending fragments 
of shell. At the foot of a tall tree, 
whose branches were stripped, was a gi- 
gantic battery. Men, bare-headed and 
in their shirt-sleeves, were serving it. 
Every two minutes the battery spoke in 
thunder tones. Looking from the bluff 
towards the great double-spired church 
of Belleville, and beyond the Menilmou- 
tant quarter, one could see, at tin' right, 
a vast bank of verdure, — Pere La 
Chaise. Flashes at the foot of a huge 
monument showed the position of the 
insurgent battery there. A retreating 
battle-line, following the canal by La 
Roquette, the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, 
and the Boulevard de la Villette, showed 
the progress of the attack. 

General Douay was crushing out the 



510 EUROPE I.X STORM AND CALM. 

last fragmentary resistance in the Fau- ness, the regulars charged into the bat- 

bourg ilu Temple; General Clinchanl teries, and a massacre of fugitives be°an. 

was subduing all the barricades barring Ladmirault meantime obtained La Vil- 

approach to the canal, lette completely, and the next morning 

.Vl the point where the Boulevard the artillery officers of the Versailles 
Richard Lenoir intersects with that of army were curiously examining the can- 
Prince Eugene was a gun barricade, uon in the Buttes Chaumont battery, 
solidly built, with ditches and embra- Belleville was burning in a hundred 
.sines. It was so protected by barricades places; one could hardly walk forty 
in the adjacent streets that the regulars yards without seeing two or three 
were compelled to relinquish attacks in corpses; and the dismal processions of 
front, and, going up by the Bastille, and bare-headed condemned, marching away 
brushing away smaller obstacles, sur- to be shot, were met everywhere. < >u 
round the gigautic work, pouring a heavy that Sunday morning, fatal to the Corn- 
fire upon it from all sides. When, alter mime, a few insurgents who had been 
some hours, the insurgents abandoned it, passed by in the Faubourg du Temple 
making a desperate run for life through and the Rue d'Angouleme still held out; 
one unlooked-for avenue of escape, the but in the afternoon, at two o'clock, 
whole section for a quarter of a mile silence was complete. At live P.M. 

around was in ruins. On the J » 1 1- Marshal MacMahon : ounced to Paris, 

spattered stones lay corpses blackened in a brief proclamation, that the insur- 

with powder, clothes covered with gore rection was quelled. 

torn off from fever-wild frames by dying Twenty thousand prisoners were taken 

men in their agony, broken guns and during the hist three days. 

fragments of an exploded caisson and Sunday morning dawned gloriously, 

its contents, half-a-dozen disembowelled and the unwonted tranquillity had in it a 

horses; and the earth, says an eye-wit- sense of blessedness. Cavaliers, many 

ness, w:is in little clots, which could only mounted on the horses which so lately 

have been produced by a generous ad- had been ridden by the officers of the 

mixture of blood. Commune, galloped gayly everywhere. 

All Saturday afternoon shells raiued Officers sauntered arm-in-arm under the 
upon Belleville, around and above the trees, which showed so many marks of 
church, and the horizon was enveloped violence, or seated themselves under the 
in enormous clouds of smoke. The in- cafe awnings and sipped coffee, handed 
surgents, who wire cannonless, were them by waiters who still showed signs 
finally driven into the space between the of fear at sight of all uniforms. The 
Buttes Chaumont and the Chateau d'Eau ; attractions were, as usual in France, a 
the two u ings of the regular army joined, theatrical spectacle, composed of groups 
throwing the remains of the insurrection- of prisoners brought down from Belle- 
ists upon the centre, which received the ville and La Villette, and paraded be- 
shock without deigning to move forward tween ranks of horsemen. Towards 
or back. Five o'clock-. si\. seven, noon on that historic Sunday a ghastly 
passed, bringing death momentarily to faltering procession of five thousand men, 
the brave defenders of the Pere La women, and children passed through the 
Chaise batteries; at eight, just as the city on their way to Versailles. Mar- 
rainy twilight was surrendering to dark- quis de Galliffet rode at the head of a 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. ."ill 

brilliant staff, behind which was a long horse's feet felled him; a bugler dis- 

line of soldiers who had deserted to the mounted, and he was placed on the 

Commune, and who were to be shot, vacated saddle. The cavalry men set 

Women and men went arm-in-arm, many off at sharp pace to regain the troop. 

a strong man holding up his fainting The man fainted; his face was covered 

wife or daughter. There were real with blood and dirt ; he cried, " Kill 

family parties, where the strong work- me ! " Five minutes from that time, at 

man held one of his loved ones each by a street corner not far from where he 

the hand, and children followed father, was captured, his appeal was heeded, 

mother, ami daughter. One old man, and his quivering body thrown into a 

wdio seemed dazzled by the light and cart. A well-dressed man struck it with 

frightened at the execrations of the a cane and called it "Canaille." 
crowd, fell down repeatedly, and was Near the walls, on that day. at the 

dragged hurriedly up by his comrades, principal gate leading to Versailles, the 

who feared that the soldiers would shoot Marquis de Galliffet ordered eighty-five 

him. By far the most horrible sight, of the prisoners shot ; and his orders 

however, was that of a man who broke were at once executed. Then on went 

away and ran furiously, dashing aside others over the hot, dusty roads to Ver- 

the hands outstretched to stop him. A sailles, where they were packed into 

troop of cavalry galloped after him. He the filthy prisons, and then examined at 

foamed at the mouth, and ran still faster ; the rate of one thousand per day. 
DOW he was down — now up — now a 



512 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE. 



Concessions of M, Thiers. — The Vindictiveness of the MuUUe Classes. -Massacre of the Prisoners. — 
English Comments on i In' Seven Days' Fight. — Last Moments of the Insurrectionists. Testimonies 
of Eye-witnesses. — Statistics of the Slaughter. — A Curious Photograph. — Out of Storm into 
Calm. 



IT is said that M. Thiers made :i brief 
visit to Paris during the seven 
days' fight, 1 nit that lie was only too 
glad to return hastily to Versailles. 
astonished ami horrified beyond measure 
at the carnage and conflagration visible 
on every hand. Thiers had never been 
willing to believe that the Communists 
would proceed to extremities, and 
Maxime Ducamp recounts that shortly 
before the final battle, three Commu- 
nists, personages of consequence, called 
at \ ersailles, on the Chief of State, and 
made a final effort at reconciliation and 
peace. These persons, whose intellectual 
status was 1 letter than that of most of 
the followers of the Commune, and who 
were therefore entitled to some attention, 
endeavored to impress the president with 
the fact, that unless decent terms were 
given to the Commune, it would whelm 
the whole capital in the ruin, which in- 
volved itself. M. Thiers refused to 
believe this. "They have said this very 
often." he remarked, " they have made 
all kinds of threats, but they will not 
execute them." The three delegates 
firmly insisted that he was not familiar 
with the temper of the insurrectionists; 
that they would not hesitate to burn the 
priceless treasures of the Louvre, ami to 
deface it' not efface all the monuments 
of French grandeur. M. Thiers re- 
flected for sonic minutes in silence, after 
which he said to the delegates: "Go 
back to Paris, and say that if surrender 



is at once made, I will prosecute no one 
under the grade of colonel, and I will 
leave the gates of the city open for three 
days. Is not that sufficiently explicit?" 
The delegates professed themselves 
overwhelmed with his generosity, which 
amounted to a substantial amnesty for 

all the chief offenders except those 

directly connected with the regular 
army, and who must therefore be con- 
sidered as traitors to the flag ; and they 
went back to Paris full of joy, and two 
of them went to the Communal Assembly 
to report. Much to their consternation 
they were immediately clapped into 
prison, and informed that they were a 
brace of idiots. Thus ended the attempts 
at a peaceable adjustment of the difficul- 
ties between Paris and Versailles; and 
from that moment there was no hesita- 
tion on the part of the Communists. 
They hacked, plundered, burned, or 
destroyed, without rhyme or reason, 
anxious to pull down, having demon- 
strated in the face of the world that they 
had no capacity for construction ; they 
had boasted of the new social edifice, 
which they were to raise, but could not 
even lay its foundations. 

The judgment of the chief apostles of 
liberty in Europe upon their work was 
full of .severest condemnation. Mazzini 
wrote to a friend, shortly after the close 
of the Insurrection: "This revolt, which 
broke out so suddenly without precon- 
ceived plans, and tinged by a purely 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



513 



negative socialistic element, abandoned 
even by all the French Republicans of 
any renown, but defended with passion 
and without fraternal spirit of conces- 
sion by men who ought to have fought, 
but who did not dare to fight against 
the foreign enemy, — tended inevitably 
to end in the exhibition of ma- 
terialism, to finish by the 
acceptance of a principle of 
action which, even had it ever 
become law, would have thrown 
France back into the darkness 
of the Middle Ages, and would 
have taken from her for cen- 
turies to come all hope of resur- 
rection. This principle is the 
sovereignty of the individual, 
which can bring about only un- 
limited personal indulgence, 
only the destruction of all au- 
thority, and the absolute nega- 
tion of national existence." 

Perhaps Mazzini was a little 
too severe on the National 
< ' uard when he accuses it of 
not having had the courage to 
light the Prussians ; but all the rest of his 
indictment is without a flaw. Rossel, who 
died at the shooting- post on the plain 
of Satory, shortly after the fall of the 
Commune, left on record a formidable 
and rather contemptuous characteriza- 
tion of the Commune. " No one of the 
actors in the drama," he said, "had 
studied his part for the great play. There 
was no study, no character, no durable 
audacity in the whole party. This ple- 
beian crowd of workers aspired to pos- 
sess the world, and yet it knew nothing 
of the world. When a burglar means to 
force a house, he first makes a study of 
the surroundings, the doors, the locks ; 
he knows where the strong boxes are, 
and how to get into them. But the 
Commune was a novice at the trade of 



burglary; was reduced to slay in order 
to steal; and found itself finally embar- 
rassed by useless crimes, not knowing 
where the treasures, the secret hoards, 
which it had committed crime in order 
to possess, were to be found. The com- 
parison pleases me, and I extend it. 




THE LAST PLACARD 
OF THE COMMUNE. 



Paris was, 
in the hands 
of those sav- 
ages, exact- 
ly like a 
combination 
lock. They 
had gotten 
i n t o t h e 
house, and 
the Com- 
mune stood knitting its brows before the 
ponderous safe which contained the 
social riches, but was obliged to content 
itself with the copper which had been 
left outside. Therefore in its vindic- 
tive rage it set fire to the invaded house 
before it departed." There is the bitter- 
ness of repentance after deception in 



.14 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



these stinging words of Ro9sel. lie was 
not the only generous and noble spirit 
led into the movement, only to find that 
he had associated himself with an ignoble 
and disreputable crew. 

Bad as the Commune was, terrible as 
the wreck of property and of life in 
the great seven days' Sght had been, 
neither the remembrance of this nor any 
other thing could excuse the ferocity and 
vindietiveness of the middle elasses of 
Paris when once they had gol the Com- 
mune down. They were not content 
with setting their feet upon ils neck', 
but they wished to mangle and torture 
it. Prisoners were treated with a feroc- 
ity which would scarcely be credited if 
it were to be described. I have little 
doubt that dozens, if not scores, of in- 
nocent people perished because of the 
denunciations of stupid or villainous ser- 
vants and zealous tradesmen. Scores 
of foreigners narrowly escaped death at 
the hands of the regulars, simply because 
they were foreigners and found some 
difficulty in explaining their presence in 
Paris. The Marquis de Galliffet was 
accused, and never made any very ex- 
plicit denial of the charges, of having 
decimated his processions of prisoners 
without any trial or other formality than 
pointing his linger at the ones to be shot. 
Many of the stories told of the regular 
troops and their excesses of vengeance 
were exaggerated at the time, but enough 
is established as history to make one 
believe that the older a nation grows the 
more terrible is a civil war within its 
boundaries. 

From the diary of a French writer, who 
carefully observed the seven days' fight, 

1 take a few sentences which show the 
temper of the time. The writer is 
speaking of the closing days of the 
fight. '• Never again will such a spec- 
tacle be seen. 1 have just been up the 



whole length of the Rue de Rivoli, 
lighted by fires all along the route, — ■ 
the Ministry of Finances, the Tuileries, 
and 1 don't know how many private 
houses. The effect of the flames rising 
up to the blue sky — for the weather is 
most beautiful — isquite startling. Every 
few yards there is a kind of barricade, 
and around it a heap of corpses. In 
the midst of these tires, breathing the 
sulphurous air, and under the impression 
(if the indignation and irritation inspired 
by so many crimes, man seems to un- 
dergo a. complete transformation. One 
looks with a kind of cruel satisfaction 
upon the faces, yellow as wax. of the 
bodies struck down by the balls of the 
chassepdts, and involuntarily one falls 
to cursing those dead men in the name 
of the massacres and the victims every- 
where to he seen. It would seem as if 
sensitiveness would lie destroyed, but it 
is, on the contrary, increased. Going 
back in the evening towards the Champs 
Elysees, after having passed buckets at 
the lire of the Hotel de Ville half the 
day, I met in the line St. Ilonore a 
long file of prisoners that soldiers were 
taking to the head-quarters. Among 
them were women who were really 
hideous. The men marched, some carry- 
ing their heads erect; others, with a 
sombre and terrible aspect ; others, com- 
pletely broken down with fear. In the 
party were many young girls, and even 
children. One man was leading by the 
hand his two little sons ; a daughter, six 
or seven years old, hung about his neck. 
The crowd followed upon the heels of 
the prisoners, yelling -Death! Death! 
Death to the pitl'oleitses I Down with 
assassins! Don't lake them any far- 
ther! Shoot them right here!' And 
from the fury which shone in the eyes of 
these people, it seemed as if at the first 
halt they would precipitate themselves 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



515 



upon the prisoners and tear them to 
pieces. The little girl looked upon this 
angry crowd with her great black eves 
filled with an indefinable expression of 
astonishment, of fright, and of sadness; 
and the more frightened she became, the 
more she tugged at the neck of her poor 
father. His wandering look seemed for 
a moment to fix itself upon me. I 
could not restrain myself. I ran to the 
man, who held the little creatine like a 
shield against the death which he very 
likely merited, and I said to him in a 
supplicating voice, ' Give me your little 
daughter I will give her back to you.' 
For answer, he only said to me, ' I am 
innocent. I don't know why I have 
been taken into this company.' Just 
then soldiers pushed us violently apart." 
The excited statement of the London 
"Times" on the last day of May, that 
Paris was no more, that we might look 
for it in future, but should find its place 
only, was scarcely justilied by facts. 
Yet the destruction had been so great 
that there is nothing wonderful in the 
formidable nature of the impression 
which it produced in neighboring capi- 
tals. The Hotel de Ville, the Lyric 
Theatre, the Palais Royale, the Grand 
Library of the Louvre, the Council of 
State, the Cours des Comptes, the Palais 
de Justice, the vast granaries on the 
Boulevard Bourdon, and the Tuileries, 
the enormous warehouses mi the docks 
of La Villette, dozens of rich mansions 
in the Rue de Lille and the Rue Royale, 
and in other of the principal avenues — 
had been either totally destroyed or so 
damaged that their demolition was 
necessary ; and such had been the de- 
termined efforts to burn the historic 
cathedral of Notre Dame, and the 
churches of St. Eustache, the Made- 
leine, and the Trinite, that it seemed to 
those who read the sensational accounts 



published at the time as if the French 
capital were razed t<> the ground ; yel 
two years afterwards there were but 
few marks of the conflagration or of the 
battle of the streets visible, and tourists 
invariably indulged in exclamations of 
disappointment. There were no ruins 
to see. 

Here we may take leave of our notes 
of the great insurrection. French soci- 
ety revenged itself terribly upon those 
who had temporarily interrupted its 
course. The hatred of the classes was 
intensified rather than extinguished. 
Men like Rossel, Ferre, Bourgeois, Mil- 
liere, Delescluze, and Rigault appear 
to have left behind them persons who- 
consider them as martyrs, and it was 
not until after the general and complete 
amnesty that the aspirations for a second 
Commune were substantially checked. 
All those who were anxious for the rec- 
onciliation of the opposing forces in 
French society, men like Victor Hugo, 
men like Father Ilyacinthe, did their 
best by word and pen to bring about 
a fraternal feeling. But, alas ' Fra- 
ternity exists only upon the portals of 
the public buildings, where it is written 
up in connection with its handmaidens, 
Liberty and Equality. 

No one connected with the Commune 
appears to have manifested much hero- 
ism or bravery when his final moment 
came. Raoul Rigault had no time to 
protest or to fume against his captors. 
He was pushed against the wall and shot 
like a dog. The recital of the death of 
Milliere, who was a man of some power 
as a publicist, and who at the time of 
the Victor Noir riots had a temporary 
notoriety, is rather interesting. Mil- 
liere was taken after the regular troops 
had broken down the barricades at the 
Pantheon, in the home of his father-in- 
law, who lived hard by, and was brought 



. r )16 



i-;ri;<>PE in storm and calm. 



before a general installed near the Lux- 
embourg. As the wretched man was 
dragged into the house with a thousand 
people howling at his heels, the general 
said, " So you are Milliere?" — "Yes;" 
said the revolutionist, assuming a certain 
dignity, " ami yon must remember that 
I am a deputy." — "That may be SO, but 
I rather think you have lost, your quality 
of deputy. For that matter, we will pro- 
ceed to have you identified." The 
officer who ha«l arrested Milliere pres- 
ently told him that the general's orders 
were that he should lie shot. ••Why?" 
said Milliere. The officer answered, 
" I only know you by name. I have read 
articles of yours which quite disgusted 
me. You are a viper, whose head must 
lie crushed. You detest society." Mil- 
liere answered, " 1 do indeed hate so- 
ciety in its present form." — " Very well ; 
then you shall lie expelled from its 
midst. You are about to lie shot." 
Milliere protested that this was barbar- 
ous cruelty, worthy of savages, etc. ; 
but he was taken at once to the Pan- 
theon, where the general, by a refine- 
ment of cruelty, had ordered he should 
be shot in a. kneeling position, as if beg- 
ging pardon of Society for the evil 
which he had wrought. A participant 
in the execution says that Milliere re- 
fused tci lie shot in a kneeling posture. 
The officer said to him, " It is the or- 
ders : von will he shot thus, and not, 
otherwi.se." He played a little comedy, 
tore open his coat, showing his naked 
hreast to the platoon charged to shoot 
him; so the officer said to him, "You 
need not indulge in any theatricals ; just 
take it easily, anil it will be much bet- 
ter." Milliere answered, •• I have a. 
right, in my own interest and in that of 
my cause, to do as I please." — " Very 
well, then, get on your knees ! " Milliere 
then said, "1 will never do it myself; 



you can make me do it if you wish." 
The officer then had him forced on to 
his knees, ami his execution was then 
proceeded with. lie cried, "JVre I'hu- 

iiniiii/r .' " and was going to chant some- 
thing else, when death interrupted him. 

Among the Americans present, in Paris 
during the reign of the Commune ami 
the battles in which it was crushed, no 
one saw more, nor went about more 
bravely determined to observe, even at. 
the risk of his life, than Mr. Omer T. 
Glenn, of Cincinnati. This gentleman 
has kindly communicated to me from 
his private journal a few notes, which 
are not without a striking interest. 
With reference to the famous courts-mar- 
tial, Mr. Glenn writes: "I passed by 
the ChAtelet Theatre, on every side of 
which, except the rear, large crowds 
were gathered. Prisoners were being 
tried rapidly. 1 had not long to wait 
before a batch of twenty or thirty came 
out under guard of the blue-uniformed 
soldiers, who did most, if not all, of the 
shooting at the Caserne Lobau. These 
prisoners were marched down to the 
Caserne Lobau, placed over against a 
wall ; the huge folding-doors of the 
building were then closed, and we im- 
mediately heard a rattle of musketry, 
followed by the usual stray shots at 
those who still showed signs of life. A 
gentleman who was with me said, • Let 
us get away from this horrible sight : I 
can't stand it ; ' so we crossed the street, 
and took our way up the Boulevard St. 
Michel. Here and there soldiers and civi- 
lians were cheerfully at. work replacing 
the paving-stones, levelling barricades, 
etc. The chances of being called upon 
to aid in this work were so good that I 
concluded to return, after a promenade 
of a. few squares; so I went back to the 
Chatelet. 

•' In a few minutes out came another 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



517 



party of prisoners under guard. 
These were men ranging in age from 
eighteen to sixty, some of them hatless, 
almost every one appearing to be of 
the working class. I am inclined to 
think that they knew they were marching 
to immediate death ; they looked so 
effaria. Arriving at the Caserne Lobau, 
the same scene was gone through with, 
the closing of the doors, the rattle of 
musketry, one or two cries, then some 
stray shots. It seemed to me that the 
executioners wore the same appalling 
expression of countenance as the prison- 
ers themselves. I ventured to remark to 
a bourgeois at ray elbow, ' At this rate 
of destruction, Paris will soon have no 
workmen left.' — 'Oh !' replied he, 'there 
are plenty of others to come up from the 
country.' This butchery at the Caserne 
Lobau went on for several days. 
I once went to Pere La Chaise, and there 
talked to some workmen, who had been 
burying some executed Communists. 
The workmen thought they had covered 
in about four hundred men. I also went 
to Montparnasse. Here dead men, dis- 
interred at various points in the city, 
were being brought in in wagons, to be 
thrown into the ditches dug for the Com- 
munards. As the crowd pressed for- 
ward to get a view of the bodies about to 
be tumbled into the trenches, an old 
guardian, in uniform, would cry out, 
' Move back, ladies and gentlemen ! 
Move back ! It is not a pleasant spec- 
tacle, I assure you.' These burials of 
the wagon-loads of corpses went on all 
that day. I do not believe there were 
thirty thousand executions, as has been 
reported ; perhaps five thousand in all." 
The official statistics with regard to 
the punishment of the insurrectionists 
have a pathetic interest. Of course 
there is included in these statistics only 
the punishment of the prisoners who 



were brought before regular courts after 
the complete cessation of hostilities. 
This does not comprise the hundreds, if 
not thousands, who were shot by the 
sentences of courts-martial during the 
battle. From the 3d of April, 1871, to 
the 1st of January, 1872, thirty-eight 
thousand five hundred and seventy-eight 
individuals were arrested as participants 
in the insurrection. Of this number the 
military courts sat in judgment upon 
thirty-six thousand three hundred and 
nine, of which two thousand four hun- 
dred and forty-five were acquitted, ten 
thousand one hundred and thirty-one 
were convicted, and twenty-three thou- 
sand seven hundred and twenty-seven 
were liberated after examination. As 
the official documents of the Commune 
say that some hundred and fifty thousand 
armed men took part in the revolt, these 
figures would indicate that France was 
nut too severe in her punishment. The 
government papers say that among 
those arrested were seven thousand four 
hundred persons who had been previously 
convicted for crimes against the law. 
There appear to have been but little 
more than a hundred sentences to death 
passed by the military courts from 1871 
to 1875, at the end of which period the 
"Commission of Assassins," as the sym- 
pathizers with the Commune called the 
Parliamentary Committee which dealt 
with the prosecutions, made up its re- 
port. There were many singular and 
lather inexplicable sentences. Thus, 
Rochefort, who was not really a Com- 
munist, but who had to leave Paris be- 
cause he told the Commune the danger 
into which it was marching blindfold, 
found himself sentenced to confinement 
in a fortress for life, and was sent off to 
the other end of the world, whence he 
made his escape in mostromantic fashion, 
and found his way to New York, and 



518 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



thence to Switzerland. Paschal Grous- 
set, tin' good-looking and amiable young 
man whom the Commune dignified with 

the appellati f its delegate of foreign 

affairs, managed to save his head, al- 
though he passed through five minutes 
of tin' most terrible suspense in front of 
the Grand Hotel in Paris, when he was 
recognized in a cab, and was saved, as if 
by a miracle, from being torn in pieces. 
I le shared Rochefort's condemnation and 
punishment, and fate destined him also 
to share in the audacious journalist's 
escape from the penal colony of New 
Caledonia. 

In the shop of a bookseller on the 
Boulevard 1 one day found the photo- 
graph of a, working-man, upon whose 
face there was an expression of mingled 
awe, contempt, and fear; the look was 
positively so mysterious and awful that 
it at once commanded respectful atten- 
tion. I inquired the history of this sin- 
gular picture, and was told that it was 
the face of a workman photographed , 
doubtless in the interest of some psycho- 
logical study, a moment or two before he 
was executed. The expression of this 
poor fellow, standing thus upon the 
threshold of eternity, still hot with the 
passions and the enmities of time, may 
be taken as typical of the attitude of 
the fighters for the' Commune during 
the last terrible seven days, of which 1 
have endeavored here to give some ac- 
count. 



After the horrors of this prolonged 
struggle, peace and security seemed to 
bring with them a complete nervous re- 
action, from which all who had been 
spectators of, and partial or unwilling 
participants in the drama, suffered for 
many days. The principal physicians of 
Paris assert that hundreds of people had 
their brains literally turned by the 
horrors which they were compelled to 
witness; and it is not strange that even 
those who were not predisposed to in- 
sanity were in a mental condition far 
from normal for a lengthy period. 

From Paris I went to London, and at 
St. Denis, as the train crawled out of 
the walls of the capital, and passed the 
half-ruined fortress, we found the Prus- 
sians, who departed from their usual 
dignity so far as to give the passengers 
in the train an ironical cheer, and to cry, 
" Vive In < 'inn hi a in !" Put this gratuitous 
insult was far from being in accordance 
with the usual custom of the Germans, 
who, as a man. had quite as great a con- 
tempt for the Commune as the French 
property-holder could have. 

In London we seemed in another 
world. The calm of the great green 
parks, the laughter of the children in 
the streets, and the undisturbed flow of 
commerce in the mighty metropolis, 
seemed almost unnatural, so accustomed 
had the eye and ear become to the sound 
of battle and to the sense of danger. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



519 



CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX. 

After Storm, Calm. — London and Paris. — Points of Resemblance and of Difference. — London 
and Paris Cockneys. — Old London. — Contrasts in Manners, Food and Drink. — Sunday in the Two 
Capitals. — Mutual Respect and Comical Concealment of It. 



THE contrasts suggested by the ar- 
rival in London after the con- 
fusion, the bloodshed, and the dangers 
in Paris, were highly impressive and 
striking; but they are even at ordinary 
times only less in degree. English sym- 
pathies had been deeply stirred by the 
turmoil on the "Continent," as our British 
cousins with their insular coolness call 
the greater portion of Europe, and 
London had, with its magnificent charity, 
done good alike to Germans and to 
French. But beneath the sympathy it 
was not difficult to discern a kind of 
pity which was not unmixed with scorn, 
and there was a disposition in the upper 
classes to decry and perhaps to deny the 
value of the revolution through which 
the neighboring country, the secular 
enemy and antagonist, but now the 
prostrate and appealing ally, had passed. 
That England was stirred by the vast 
demonstration of German military power 
there was abundant proof. It was ap- 
parent in the renewed attention to coast 
defences, the rebirth of the military feel- 
ing in the remotest centres, the most 
rural of counties, and the disposition to 
turn for consolation in the presence of 
these huge triumphs of a neighbor and 
kindred race, to the contemplation of 
the "Greater Britain," of which Sir 
Charles Dilke has given us so picturesque 
and adequate an account. England had 
not been in the midst of important events 
for the two or three preceding years. 



The Reform Bill agitation over, the 

country had settled hit ie of its long 

periods of inertia, — as it seems to the 
foreigner, — periods in which the needed 
next reform seems to crystallize in the 
national mind without apparent glow of 
feeling or noisy demonstration of any 
shape whatsoever. 

London and Paris, between which 
there is an incessant and most curious 
interchange of sentiment and of travel, 
are as unlike each other in some respects 
as if they were thousands instead of 
a few hundred miles apart. Each has 
flowing through its centre an historic 
stream, whose banks are lined with im- 
posing and with venerable mansions, 
and the citizens of each city pay especial 
reverence to these rivers, and are as 
proud of them as if they were Amazons, 
Congos, or Mississippis. Each city has 
an ancient and ornate Cathedral church, 
and the lover of the beautiful finds it 
hard to choose between Notre Dame 
and Westminster. Each has its cor- 
porations with their innumerous tra- 
ditions, their fuss and feathers, their 
gowns and furs, their privileges and 
accumulated wealth ; each has a muni- 
cipal legend, which is full of glory and 
lighting, of careers of citizens enriched 
by trade and ennobled by their sover- 
eigns; each has a huge institution de- 
voted to military and naval glory; and 
each its crypt in which a hero sleeps. 
There is a kind of cousiuship between 



520 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



the Pantheon and St. Paul's. Each 
capital has its observatory, which it 
thinks the fust in the world ; and each 
its academies of painting, which respec- 
tively assert their supremacy without 
doubl as to the legitimacy of their claims. 
Each has its parliament, its ministries, 
its official "season," and diplomatic lux- 
ury, activity, and splendor; each its an- 
nual visitation of the rich and the great, 
who go to Paris and London because 
they are London and Paris, and for n<> 
other reason at all ; and each its throng 
of adventurers, who come to prey upon 
the rich and to bask in their sunshine 
with that recklessness of the future 
characteristic of their class. 

But after a little, one finds it difficult 
to establish analogies between London 
and Paris. Both cities are alike in this 
regard, that while their citizens manifest 
and express the greatest veneration for 
the relics of the past, the modern and 
new portions of the capitals are unpict- 
uresque and prosaic. Perhaps the Lon- 
doner attaches more importance to the 
past than does the Parisian. In France, 
hundreds of thousands of people date 
everything in their country's history 
from the Revolution of the last century, 
which, as Paine says, made " a new 
France." But in England, although in 
their time they have cut off a king's 
head, they have not cut loose from the 
traditions, the legends, and the beau ties of 
former centuries, and they still speak of 
them with bated breath. The Parisian 
cockney is a cynic, and the London 
cockney an enthusiast. If Alphonse or 
Adolphe go to Versailles for a Sunday's 
outing, they are more than likely to criti- 
cise the landscape gardening of Le 
Notre, and to poke fun at the shade of 
the great monarch. But 'Any on the 
sands at Margate or at Hampton Court 
is as truly patriotic as when within the 



sound of Bow Bells, and he finds little, 
if anything, to object to in the monu- 
ments or the manners bequeathed to him 
by the Englishmen of past epochs. 

Modern Paris, with its enormous and 
wide avenues, with their broad side- 
walks bordered with graceful trees, with 
the lightness and grace of the huge yel- 
lowish-white mansions, with their balco- 
nies and their immense ranges of plate- 
ghiss windows, their dexterously deco- 
rated shops, and their superb churches, 
halls, markets, fountains, and squares, 
is a dazzling and bewitching vision to 
those who first look upon it; and from 
April to November the beautiful town is 
bathed in delicate sunlight and rarely 
overhung with the gray and frowning 
skies, which, joined to the canopy of 
sooty and sulphurous smoke, make Lon- 
don so oppressive to the new-comer. 
But London has a quiet beauty of its 
own, which the great town does not 
hastily reveal, and which one must learn 
to find out. There are certain tempera- 
ments specially delighted with what they 
aic pleased to term the "mellowness" 
of London, — its mists, which seem to 
give a kind of glamor to the commonest 
objects, its winding streets, with unex- 
pected stairs and gateways, triply pro- 
tected with iron hooks and spikes, its 
broad expanses of court, around which 
ancient houses stare down upon black- 
ened, almost unrecognizable, statues of 
half-forgotten worthies, its mysterious 
rookeries, dignified with aristocratic 
names, to which the busy Londoners 
repair for refreshment, the shadowy 
taverns into which the sun almost never 
peeps, the recesses protected by oaken 
screens, by red curtains, in which men 
take their dinners and drink with the 
gravity of conspirators and communicate 
in whispers, though they have nothing 
whatever to conceal. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



521 



It is worthy of note that while Paris 
is the most literary of European capitals, 
the stranger is not so prone to associate 
its architectural and physical features 
with some literary remembrance as he is 
in London. One thinks of Dr. Johnson 
and of Dickens in a walk up Fleet 
Street and through the .Strand; but one 
rarely gives a thought to Balzac on the 
boulevard. In London, the high streets 
and the by-streets are filled with children, 
clean and dirty, well and ill dressed, 
decorous and screeching, children young 
and children half-grown, babes under 
the feet and brats at the corner ; but in 
Paris, one starts in search of a child 
almost in vain. The street Arab, so 
familiar to English and American eyes, 
is unknown in Paris. If the baker's boy, 
in his white cap, is disposed now and 
then to be jocular, he does it with the 
air of a mature and blase clubman. As 
for M. Hugo's famous GavrocJie, I have 
yet to see his exact type. He must 
have gone out with the 1848 Republic. 
But London is a city full of children, and 
of children who take their ease in their 
good capital, unrestricted by draymen, 
policemen, and other functionaries dread- 
ful to juvenile folk elsewhere. 

While in elegance of modern architect- 
ure Paris undoubtedly takes the lead, 
in independence and in quiet comfort, 
not devoid of a certain picturesqueness, 
London, if it could get rid <>f its smoke, 
would be without a rival. In Paris 
there is always a feeling of attrition. 
The life is intensely public, glaring. 
The street is a salon in extenso. One 
instinctively feels in his pocket for his 
gloves, and looks to his cane when he 
goes abroad. At home, there is the 
lodge-keeper, a kind of jack-in-otlice, in 
his den. In a " quarter " of Paris there 
are a thousand little centres like so 
many gossiping, covetous, and back- 



biting village circles. Both Paris and 
London have a curiously provincial flavor 
which is not perceptible in other great 
cities. If any thing striking hap- 
pens in London at two o'clock of an 
afternoon, it is talked of in Whitechapel 
and Belgravia in the same minutely gos- 
siping vein before sunset. "Every- 
body knows everybody who is anybody 
in Paris," said a Parisian to me once. 
As the cities become great, the citizens 
in them, instead of growing unconcerned 
in the presence of daily events, take a 
ludicrously exaggerated concern in them. 
London, with ils four and a half mil- 
lions, Paris with its two and a half mil- 
lions, of what might be called intramural 
folk, and with their colossal aggrega- 
tions of wealth, of culture, of crime, of 
misery, of adventure, are as eager for the 
latest news of a rifle-match or a horse- 
race as a New England village might be. 
Much of new London sprang into 
being during the long wars, when Great 
Britain was cut off from association with 
the continent, and when, consequently, 
her architects and builders were de- 
prived of models of taste, — when, in 
fact, the people cared little for taste in 
their shelters ; hence the miles and 
scores of miles of hastily-planned, squat 
and blackened house-fronts, which con- 
ceal happy and harmonious homes, but 
which to the outward vision are repulsive 
enough. When Paris got the informing 
touch of modern improvement under the 
Empire, when Napoleon III., who had 
had his gaze sharply fixed on London's 
defects during his residence there, re- 
solved that he would leave a monument 
built out of the lime-stone quarries of 
France in the capital, where he managed 
to maintain his rule well or ill, old 
Paris, was destined to lose some of 
its charm and mysteries in the presence 
of this pressure of improvement, but 



522 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



" old London " has kept its strangeness 
and oddity, and bids fair to keep it long. 
The wood pavement lias found its way 
into many a black alley and in front of 
many an antique pile, but the craze for 
the widening of streets has not been 
allowed to interfere with old London. 

Many points of contrast between Lon- 
don and Paris have disappeared within 
the last twenty years. Of the ordinary 
Paris, nothing was more impressive 
before the many changes which invaded 
the tvve> capitals consequent on the great 
current of international travel, than the 
difference in the aspect of the two great 
cities on the Sunday. To the American 
of the Atlantic and the Middle States, 

the profound repose of respectable Lon- 
don on the sacred day was as natural 
and proper as, to his thinking, the open 
transaction of business, the gayety, and 
the festal atmosphere of the Sunday of 
Paris was shocking and detestable. The 
American found, however, that there 
was an unpleasant Sunday side to Lon- 
don, and was duly shocked in presence 
of the thrones of roughs, and of 
wretchedly-clad women and even chil- 
dren waiting, at mid-day, the opening 
of the public houses, where intoxicating 
liquors were freely dispensed. Put this 
the tolerant traveller noted as the result 
of the depravity consequent upon igno- 
rance, while he went hack to the old 
French Revolution, with what he was 
wont to call its mischievous teachings, 
for the license prevalent in the French 
capital. Nowadays the Parisians close 
their shops, not because they consider 
Sunday as more worthy of observance 
than any other fUte. day, but because 
they take it as the occasion of their 
weekly ailing, and their promenades 

among the beauties of tin' clean streets. 
Among the fashionable tradesmen Sun- 
day-closing is universal in Paris. In 



the Rue de la Paix, on many of the 
grand boulevards, and in most of the 
avenues devoted to shops where articles 
of luxury are sold, the shutters are all 
up. only a Hebrew now and then plying 
his commerce in bold defiance of the 
general rale. The hundreds of shops in 
Paris which depend upon the custom of 
the foreign traveller are as careful to 
keep Sunday as they arc to put " Eng- 
lish Spoken," and •• iSe Habla Espafiol," 
upon the plate-glass of their windows. 

On the other hand, the sternness of 
the London Sunday has been much 
broken by the great invasion of the for- 
eign clement, the Italian, the German, 
the Jew, the Greek; and tin' wanderer 
in the great capital in pursuit of some- 
thing to cat on a Sabbath afternoon now 
sees the doois of an inviting cafe wide 
open where he would have sought for re- 
freshment in vain some years ago. The 
stranger's idea that all classes of Lon- 
doners give themselves up with Puri- 
tanic devotion to a solemn stillness on 
the Sabbath is incorrect. In some of 
the upper circles, receptions are held and 
dinners are given ; in the literary and 
artistic guild, the day is used for meet- 
ings and conversation ; but it is rare to 
hear of a concert or an entertainment, in 
the strict sense of the term, at any pri- 
vate house on Sunday. The trains run 
at certain hours of the day; the parks 
in summer .are filled with hundreds of 
thousands of promenaders of all classes, 
and bands of music sometimes play re- 
frains taken from opera bovffes which 
bear the mark of Paris export. The 
museums arc not yet open to the public, 
as in Paris, although here and there is 
an exhibition, as at Greenwich, where 
one may wander through the stately halls 
and see the pictures of great naval bat- 
tles and the memorials of Nelson, shown 
with reverent gestures by the whimsical 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



523 



old guardians ; and a singular feature of 
London society is the aristocratic gather- 
ering in the Zoological Gardens (popu- 
larly known as the Zoo) from four to 
seven on a summer Sunday afternoon. 
The holiday making of the Londoner in 
the many beautiful resorts near the capi- 
tal, such as Hampton Court, Richmond, 



riment ; but the Parisian crowd is not 
satisfied without a balloon, and, possibly, 
a horse-race, a shopping excursion among 
the booths of the fairs, which are as nu- 
merous as the saints in the calendar, fire- 
works, andaroystering dinner in theeven- 
ing, with probably a merry carriage-ride 
home after dinner. In London, people 




SUNDAY MARKET IN PETTICOAT LANE. 



Windsor, Kew Gardens, Dulwich, is 
vastly more decorous and subdued than 
that of the Parisian, who, in company with 
his wife or his sweetheart, finds his way 
to Versailles or St. Cloud, to Meudon or 
Sceaux, to the forests of St. Germain or 
Fontainebleau, to Ville d' Array or to the 
pretty villages on the banks of the Seine. 
If the London cockney indulges in a roll 
on the grass, it is the extent of his mer- 



go abroad simply for exercise, for which 
every healthy English man and woman 
has a kind of mania; in France, no one 
thinks simply of physical exercise, and 
the glow of appetite which follows it, but 
rather of the sensuous beauty of green 
lanes and turfy lawns, the sight of pretty 
fountains, symmetrical parks, and a look 
at the fashions as displayed in the mov- 
ing throngs. France being a highly 



524 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



democratic country, every conceivable 

kind of vehicle, unless it be an advertis- 
ing van. is admitted to the Hois de Bou- 
logne. The cook goes to ride with her 
coachman lover on the box of his cab, 
which falls into lino behind the stately 
equipage of an English duke, a Spanish 
grandee, or the President of the Repub- 
lic, if he happens along. But the 
unfortunate wight who attempts an en- 
trance to Hyde Park in a numbered car- 
riage will find himself most haughtily 
motioned away, and must wait until he 
can afford a lively, hired or owned, be- 
fore he can mingle with the " upper ten." 
Perhaps there is no sight in London park 
on any day so amazing as that of the 
immense number of handsome carriages 
returning from the Grand Prix, through 
the liois de Boulogne, in Paris on a Sun- 
day afternoon. But two-thirds of the 
people who (ill these handsome vehicles 
belong to the great mob of adventurers 
and adventuresses, who perpetually lill 
the motley world of Paris. There is a 
"Hospital Sunday" and a "Studio Sun- 
day "in London; but in Paris, Sunday 
is the choosen day for any and almost 
every great public f&te or celebration. An 
election is held on Sunday ; the great 
horse-race of the year occurs on Sunday ; 
ministers address their constituents on that 
day ; and if first performances at the thea- 
tres are not given on Sunday evenings, it 
is because the managers have learned by 
long experience that the Sunday papers 
are read with more interest that those of 
any other day, and they wish the criti- 
cisms of the premiires, which take place 
on Saturday evenings, to appear in them. 
The continental papers are never tired of 
reviling the English Sunday as a horri- 
ble institution, calculated to promote sui- 
cide or despair : and a lively French lady 
once informed me that the terrors of the 
Channel on a Saturday night and the ter- 



rors of a gloomy Sunday in the English 
metropolis had sufficiently alarmed her 
to prevent her ever again visiting the 
British Isles. 

As Paris grows larger it takes on, as 
London long ago took on, a climate of 
its own. Humboldt, in a burst of indig- 
nation against the France which he never 
liked, once said that Paris hail the worst 
climate in the world ; and the great 
traveller's dictum has at least some 
foundation in fact. When the gloom of 
November settles down over the fair 
city, Paris is scarcely more agreeable 
than London. The vast area of chimneys, 
letting forth the smoke of the soft Bel- 
gium coal, year by year, makes the 
winter atmosphere very like that which, 
when one first sees it in London, Man- 
chester, or Birmingham, gives a shudder 
of repulsion. But in great cities, people 
take small note of the weather, their 
lives being artificial and indoors, for 
your true Londoner is, despite his frantic 
devotion to exercise, an indoor being 
eight months of the year. It is not 
strange that he should be so in a climate 
which elicits such mention as I once read 
in an English journal, namely, "January, 
February, March, April, May, June, and 
the other winter months." Paris has its 
fogs, dreary and uninviting as those 
of London. It sometimes has cold and 
rainy Junes ; and the weatherwise say 
that the climate of the north of Europe is 
slowly changing to cold, fog, and damp. 
Both the Parisian and the Londoner 
seem determined to fortify against this 
inroad of the elements by an increased 
devotion to alcohol, and since the great 
war of 1870-71 Paris has learned to drink 
deeply. Both in Paris and London, eat- 
ing and drinking are elevated to the 
dignity of pursuits. Some of the finest 
and most imposing edifices in newer 
Loudon are joint-stock restaurants, with 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



525 



palatial halls above and deep and warm 
basements, where juicy steaks and chops 
sputter upon the grills, and where the 
foaming ales and wines, presumably 
good, flow freely until the small hours, 
except on Saturday night, when every- 
thing is relentlessly closed on the stroke 
of twelve; and if "Big Ben," in his 
tower by the Thames, should sound the 
last of his twelve strokes before the bar 
of the publican and the cafe keeper is 
shut, a burly policeman is at hand with 
first a friendly warning and next a 
peremptory summons. The rigidity with 
which the laws regulating small matters 
are enforced, in both London and Paris, 
is a source of constant wonder to the 
American, accustomed to more latitude 
in the carrying out of laws which he 
makes for himself. 

It is odd to remark that the citi- 
zens of each capital constantly reproach 
those of the other with their lack of 
knowledge of the art of cookery. It 
is a firm article of faith in the French- 
man's calendar that the English are 
savage in their appetites, and have no 
national dishes ; while the Englishman is 
unshaken in his conviction that the 
French live upon messes and slops, and 
numerous bits and corners of things of 
which the fastidious stomach of the 
Anglo-Saxon would not allow him to par- 
take. The real fact is that good and 
wholesome cooking is to he found in 
the homes of the middle classes in each 
of the great cities, and that when you 
come to the tables of the nobility, the 
merchant princes, and the nouveaux 
riches, in London or Paris, you find their 
dinners composites made up by cosmo- 
politan cooks, and showing a choice not 
always in harmony witli the laws of 
health, from the luxuries of every country 
under the sun. Strong and long pota- 
tions have gone out of fashion in the 



highest society in England. There is no 
longer heavy drinking at lunch or dinner. 
It is reputed bad form ; and in Paris it 
was never good form outside the bour- 
geoisie; as for the •• people" of each 
capital, it drinks whatever comes handy, 
and all it can get. and for the last lew 
years, wretched adulterated stuffs have 
been sold in both cities. The populations 
of London and Paris are swindled with 
pale sherries, Marsalas and Beaunes, 
St. Emilions, and other seductive fluids 
with exotic names, which are concocted 
out of the strangest materials ; and the 
rhi ordinaire, a huge bottle of which is 
placed before the workman of Paris at 
his noonday meal, comes from a glucose 
factory scarcely half a dozen miles from 
his restaurant. Gone are the festal days 
when, in the lustrous lands of the south, 
the soldier and the peasant paid for their 
wines by the hour and not by the bottle, 
— having, for a modest subscription, 
free access to the casks at the cabarets. 
In London, the omnipresent beer-can 
still holds its place in the popular fancy, 
and beer does its work in keeping hun- 
dreds of thousands of artisans and all the 
serving classes in a befuddled state of 
content, under conditions which might 
otherwise arouse their liveliest com- 
plaints. 

To the American mind the importance 
attaching to the food supply in England 
especially is very striking. You open 
the morning paper and you find columns 
upon columns on the mutton from Aus- 
tralia, the wheat from Dakota, the Rus- 
sian and Hungarian supplies of grain, 
the prospects of a crop in Egypt, the 
bad harvests because of the rain in Eng- 
lish counties, and all this treated with 
an earnestness which betokens its na- 
tional importance. The Paris paper 
lightly gossips of Lamartinein his palmy 
days, or tells a tale of Louis Philippe or 



526 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

Napoleon I. Tin 1 London paper grap- but he is enthusiastic, when the stranger 

pics with the problems of the crowded is not by, in his praise of English order, 

quarters of the East End. and waxes respect for law, the grand regularity of 

eloquent over the "dead meat supply." Parliament with its ancient formulas and 

< > 1 1 1 of this struggle for t' 1. this recog- imposing traditions, the modest preten- 

nition of the fact that the nourishment sions of royalty, and the popularity of 

must and does come from without, has its representatives, and although he does 

grown the "Imperial policy" of Great enjoy seeing the lion's paw caught in 

Britain, with its Woolwich, its navies the net, still, when the lion roars, he 

which sweep the seas, its tremendous ac- cheers as loudly as if England had not 

cumulation of money in colonial enter- been his secular enemy, had not invaded 

prises, its venturesome speculation in his country fourteen times, and had not 

c itries thousands of miles away, and sat in Calais town for more than three 

probably its tremendous antipathy to hundred years. The Londoner of high 
protection. Twenty years ago, France, and low degree showed how intense was 
plethoric and proud, ridiculed England his real admiration for Paris when she 
for this close attention to the food ques- was in her great struggle, and while he 
tion ; but now tin' crisis has fallen upon is wandering about the avenues of the 
France also, and her legislators, ceasing capital on his Easter holiday, or in mid- 
to quarrel vainly among themselves over summer, when the whole city seems 
idle questions of "groups" and dynas- transformed into a beautiful garden filled 
ties, cafi factions and church cliques, with stately palaces, he is hearty in his 
begin to talk of protective duties on compliments, and it is not until he gets 
foreign wheat; and the word pork is, on home again, and has lost the thin edge 
some days, found as often as the word of his souvenirs of travel, that he begins 
picture in the scholarly and thoughtful anew to consider the Frenchman as prone 
French periodicals, to frogs, as deficient in manly strength, 
Finally, London and Paris have an and, possibly, in need of moral backbone. 
intense and well-grounded respect for Yet there is not so much intercourse be- 
each other, which each is always doing tween the two capitals as might be sup- 
its utmost to conceal under an assumed posed from their proximity. It is said 
cynicism and critical coldness. Your that lint fifty-five thousand English peo- 
Parisian talks of the fogs, the blackness, pie came to the great Paris Exhibition 
and the gin palaces, and the brutality of of 1878, and in 1867 the number must 
the Anglo-Saxon with great contempt; have been less. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



527 



CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN. 



The Germans at Dieppe. — The English Channel. — An Effective Fortification. — The " Precious Isle set in 
the .Silver Sea." — The North Sea Coast. — English Seaside Resorts. — The While- Cliffs of 
England. — The Gi-eat Commercial Highway. — George Feabody at Portsmouth. 



IT is said that when the Germans were 
at Dieppe, they indulged in some 
speculation as to the ease with which the 
Channel could be crossed, and England 
invaded. They might have erected a 
column to their speculations, like the 
" Napoleon's Column" which stands 
on the heights of Boulogne, and as it 
weaves to and fro in the brisk salt 
winds which blow over the cliff, serves 
to remind the passers by of the vanity of 
Napoleon First's great plan. The Ger- 
man hosts were wild with triumph in 
those days of 1870, when they talked so 
coolly of a bold enterprise, and they 
were perhaps pardonable. The French 
have long since given up any wild 
schemes for the invasion of the island 
which stands to the northward, boldly 
rising out of the stormy waters, the 
"precious isle set in a silver sea" of 
which Shakespeare spoke so fondly ; and 
whatever may be the ambitious dreams 
of the German Chancellor, they can 
scarcely have extended so far as to com- 
prehend within their airy scope a hostile 
excursion from Amsterdam or Rotterdam 
to Harwich or Dover. If some day the 
absorbing process of which one now 
heat's so much is completed, and Ger- 
many gains a new shore line on the North 
Sea, there may be much bluster about 
coercing England ; but the time for that 
has not yet come. 

The English, however, are fully awake 
to the possibility of danger, and their 
channel and north-easterly coasts are 



amply fortified. The defences of the 
Thames, and of the roadway of Dover, 
the entrenched camp of Plymouth, the 
great works at. Milford Haven and Pem- 
broke, awaken the admiration even of 
the jealous Continental powers ; and the 
fortifications of Portsmouth Harbor, 
where hundreds of thousands of pounds 
have been spent in the creation of ar- 
mored forts, seem to leave little to be 
feared. The gigantic guns in the forts 
on the pier at Dover are among the 
wonders of Europe. Yet although the 
project of a tunnel underneath the chalky 
bed of the channel has been agitated for 
more than twenty years, it lias made but 
little practical progress. It is of no avail 
that the French protest that such a 
tunnel can in no case be made use of for 
military purposes, that it might he neu- 
tralized by act of Conference, that it 
could be effectively neutralized by act of 
dynamite, that no force sufficient to 
capture even a small town could under 
the most extraordinary circumstances be 
forced through it; John Hull prefers to 
distrust the foreigner, as he distrusted 
him at the beginning of the century, 
when he was striking at him with all his 
might and main. The channel has been 
crossed by balloon, crossed by hardy 
swimmers, who had not the fear of 
sharks before their eyes. Human beings 
have done their best to bring the " silver 
streak " into contempt and show that it 
is not difficult to traverse; yet England 
considers it her practical fortification, 



528 



EUROPE IS STORM AM) CALM. 



especially when she sets afloat on it her 
Buperb Channel fleet, a floating fortress 
which, in normal times, may be ordered 
away to any danger point, but in periods 
of disturbance on the northern part of 
the Continent is at its post. The island 
fortress has round about it a tremendous 
moat filled with the most capricious and 
difficult waves in the world. The coast- 
guard squadron, with its iron-clad tur- 
ret-ships, its torpedo boats, and some 
of the " wooden walls " which are still 
valid, is very powerful. Twenty years 
ago the coast fortifications of the United 
Kingdom were absurdly insufficient. 
The " Martello" towers of the old days 
could be knocked to nieces in a few r 
minutes withmodern artillery; but when 
rilled cannon came in, the English deter- 
mined to fortify their coasts so that they 
should hav no cause for regret. 

After 1860 the work went on with 
great rapidity, and the new port of 
Lowestoft, the huge group of batteries 
at the mouth of the Stowe at Harwich, 
the works at Shoeburyness and at Slice] - 
ness. the lloo and Darnett forts protect- 
ing the great arsenal at Chatham, the 
perfected defenses of Dover Castle, and 
the splendid lines of forts which hedge 
about the maritime establishment at 
Plymouth, — forts having granite walls 
three feet, thick, strong enough to defy 
almost any known projectile, and their 
embrasures furnished with metallic buck- 
lers, — all these immense and formidable 

chains of iron, steel, and stone bulwarks 
have been paid for by the nation un- 
complainingly, Imt they have added 
enormously to its burdens. Greal Brit- 
ain complain-, hut little of the debt con- 
sequent on playing at the game of war. 
More than two-thirds of her national 
indebtedness is due to one lone- series of 
wars which have been waged by her 
within our modern days against powers 



which clashed with her interests or with 
her ambitions. She points her cannon 
at the Continent, and at the same time 
professes desire for absolute peace with 
all Europe. 

A wonderful coast line is this of the 
North Sea and the English Channel on 
the Continental side, with its ancient his- 
toric cities, and its hustle of nineteenth- 
century movement and commerce. At 
a fishing village live miles from Bou- 
logne, one may fancy himself transported 
hack to the Middle Ages. There is little 
if any hint of modernism in costume or 
architecture or anything else therein. 
In the French coast towns, Cherbourg, 
Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, and Calais, 
there is a curious contrast of the old and 
new ; fishing towns nestle about the 
churches on the hillsides, aud down by 
the water are line quays and imposing 
warehouses. Of these French coast 
towns, Calais aud Dieppe are, perhaps, 
the most picturesque. On the breezy 
heights of Sainte Adresse, back of 
Havre, are innumerable chdteaux and 
villas, where the merchant princes who 
once owned great fleets have retired to 
the enjoyment of fortunes such as their 
successors may never hope to make. 

Trouville, on its pretty sands, behind 
its black rocks, and backed by an ex- 
quisite, almost idyllic, succession of rural 
glades filled with picturesque Norman 
farms, is a famous midsummer rendez- 
vous for the fashionable world. At 

Trouville, ler the Second Empire, 

September was the high season ; when 
the courts arose and the magistrates 
went to bathe, all the social world fob 
lowed them. All along the coast of 
Normandy and Brittany smart towns 
are springing up, tilled with hotels and 
country bouses created for the residence 
of the English, the American, the Bel- 
gian, and the German travellers, who 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



529 



like to spend a few weeks by the North- 
ern Sea. The English come in throngs 
to the French bathing places, and the 
French go in turn to walk over the cliffs 
of Dover, or to dwell for a time in the 
gorgeous hotels at Brighton. An Eng- 
lish duke takes up his station at Dieppe, 
and a French duke goes to Portsea, or 
to Ventnor, or some other ro- 
mantic nook on the pretty 
shores of the Isle of Wight. 

The English coast towns on 
the Channel are perhaps less 
cosmopolitan than their con- 
tinental rivals opposite. But 
some of them, like Brighton, 
are quite splendid. Brighton 
is more than ever " London- 
super-mare," now that the 
swift express trains from the 
central railway stations in the 
metropolis are so frequent. A 
famous novelist, a poet fond 
of contemplating the waves, 
or a smart scientist, will have 
their houses at Brighton and 
yet keep in the London move- 
ment, getting away from the 
smoke and steam of the dingy 
metropolis as night settles 
down over it. Time was when 
Brighton had a physiognomy 
of its own ; but this is now 
gone. The long promenade, 
with its front of noble hotels 
and villas, shaken and rattled 
by tln> impetuous wind, might 
be taken for a quarter of London which 
had been accidentally blown out to sea. 
Hastings has more flavor than Brighton. 
It is, especially in midsummer, charming, 
and at Easter, when crowded with visitors, 
almost as gay as its more fashionable 
neighbor. 

The characteristic features of an Eng- 
lish seaside resort are enormous and 



monumental hotels, solemn as Egyptian 
pyramids, and sometimes almost as 
gloomy, yet with substantial comfort 
bestowed within their massive walls. 
But the curse of the English fashionable 
hotel is its intense devotion to regula- 
tions. Everything seems arranged by 
rote, until one grows to fancv himself 




THE SCOTCH VOLUNTEERS AT BRIGHTON. 



in a prison rather than in a hostelry. 
One must regulate life by stern method ; 
and this the Briton does readily ; and 
it is noticeable that he grumbles only 
when he travels abroad, submitting at 
home to small tyrannies quite past com- 
prehension. After the hotel, in impor- 
tance, comes the " pier." A first-class 
bathing town often has two piers, and 



530 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALX. 



nn these daring structures, which run 
fur out into the stormy water, concert- 
rooms and restaurants are constructed, 
and one has the pleasure <>f risking hat 
or bonnet in :i struggle with the wind, in 
company with thousands of others. 
every morning, while listening to the 
music of u regimental hand. In im- 
portant naval and military stations, there 
is almost no show of uniforms, for the 
English officer doffs his costume as soon 



hend the weekly excursions of throngs of 
cockneys. 

At the French seaside resort, the 
Casino, with its gay crowds of richly 
costumed ladies of the upper, middle, 
and the lower worlds, and the beach, 
with its freakish and perfectly unre- 
strained carnivals of bathing, furnishes, 
perhaps, more amusement than can be 
found in any English coast town. The 
continental peoples do not go to the 




ox THE SANDS AT BRIGHTON. 



as he is off duty. The variegated as- 
pect of the street of a German garrison 
town, where hundreds of officers arc 
clanking their swords ami perpetually 
saluting, is unknown in England. The 
hotel, the pier, the promenade along 
the shore, the daily assemblage, espe- 
cially in ports like Dover anil Folke- 
stone, to see the new arrivals and to 
comment upon them. — these, joined to 
the most discreet bathing, in which the 
sexes are separated with prodigious care, 
are the main points observable at Eng- 
lish seaside resorts, unless we compre- 



scaside for rest or recreation, they go 
for jollity, perhaps for dissipation, for 
frolics. The English ride, drive, walk, 
play lawn tennis, bathe, and feed, on 
scientific principles ; they are not in pur- 
suit of pleasure so much as of health 
and repose. 

Very beautiful and impressive are the 
white cliffs of England, rising out of the 
Channel on a calm summer's day, and 
very remote and much-to-be-longed-for 
do they seem when the traveller is toil- 
ing towards them in a diminutive packet 
in the midst of the boiling surges in win- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



531 



ter. The Channel ports, on either side, 
are small and inconvenient, and the craft 
which can enter them afford but poor 
accommodation to the traveller. Up and 
down the great highway of the North 
Sea and the Channel, and the way to the 
mid-Atlantic, go the silent fleets, great 
lines of steamers trading from Holland 
to the Indies, the German and the Bel- 
gian ships, the enormous argosies on 
their way to Antwerp, now one of the 
principal ports of Europe. The Orient 
pours its riches through this narrow 
strait into the Scheldt and the Zuyder 
Zee, whence they are dispersed through- 
out the vast domain of Germany and of 
the North. The quays of Antwerp can 
receive and discharge in one day more 
freight-cars than an}' other three terminal 
stations in Europe. Antwerp is the 
greatest distributing point on the Conti- 
nent to-day. 

When the storms and fogs begin, the 
list of disasters on the Channel length- 
ens with frightful rapidity. Collisions 
must naturally lie frequent on a route si i 
thronged with craft of all kinds, from 
the huge merchant steamer to the small 
fishing-smack. There is a sudden crash 
in the night ; two great shadowy forms 
have met; hundreds of lives are lost, 
and the next morning a hundred news- 
papers tell a story of horror. It seems 
as if these disasters were fated to occur 
from time to time. Innocent emigrants 
bound over seas are swept out of exist- 
ence before they have got out of sight 
of laud. Now and then the Channel 
swallows up a victim in a most mys- 
terious manner, as it took clown the 
" Eurydice " close by the Isle of Wight. 

It is strange that there is so little said 
and sung about the Channel in England, 
while so much is made of it in France. 
It is true that the English have their 
attention diverted to greater seas and 



narrower escapes farther from home, but 
they have produced no one who lias sung 
or spoken so melodiously or forcibly of 
the historic strait as the old gray-haired 
poet who lived on a Channel island for 
half a generation rather than breathe 
the air of Paris with the usurper. Vic- 
tor Hugo is a good sailor, immensely 
fond of the sea, and from his coign of 
vantage in Guernsey, studied the Chan- 




VICTOR HUGO. 

nel as lovingly as in his youth lie had 
studied Paris. In his ''Toilers of the 
Sea" it is always the phenomena of the 
Channel that he describes, the worn and 
cnimbling rocks, the bold shores, the 
tormented waters, the sudden storms, 
the flashing of the lightning, and the 
mysterious and deadly mists of La 
Manche. He tells with pathetic force 
in one of his books the story of that 
brave Captain Harvey who went down 
in the Channel on the nisrht of the 17th 



532 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of March, 1S70, while making his usual 
trip in his fine steamship the " Nor- 
mandy," from Southampton to Guern- 
sey. Harvey was known to the vener- 
able poet, because he had taken him to 
see the review of the English fleet at 
Sheerness on one occasion, and had 
decorated his ship, saying that he had 
done it " for the exile." This touched 
Victor Hugo's heart, and when Captain 
Harvey's ship, the "Normandy," collided 
with a great screw steamer going from 
Odessa to Grimsby with a load of five 
hundred tons of wheat, and went down 
in the mists and the waves, he gave hi in 
such an epitaph as only a Hugo can 
give, lie drew a picture of the noble 
captain standing erect on the bridge, 
revolver in hand, keeping back the self- 
ish and unruly, forcing into the boats 
one after another all his passengers and 
his crew, saying a pleasant word to a little 
boy who was sent last; and then quietly 
going down into the waves witli the ship, 
from which he would not be separated. 
"Every man," said Victor Hugo, "has 
one right, the inalienable right of becom- 
ing a hero, and Captain Harvey used his 
right." 

It was from Portsmouth, in the early 
days of 1870, that the fine war-ship 
the " Monarch " sailed for America, hav- 
ing on board the remains of the great 
American merchant who had so long 
made London his home, and who had 
endowed its poor with so many charities. 
Mr. Peabody died in London, at the 



residence of his friend, Sir Curtis Lamp- 
son, and while the dead merchant lay in 
state iu Westminster Abbey, thousands 
of poor came to pay their tribute of re- 
spect to one who had known how to 
make so good use of his wealth. The 
scene at Portsmouth at the time of the 
embarkation was quite affecting. Thou- 
sands of the poorer classes appeared to 
think it an occasion on which they 
should show special respect, and the de- 
parture of the " Monarch " from the 
port, attended by the capricious little 
corvette the " Plymouth," which looked 
like a swallow alongside a barn when in 
the immediate neighborhood of her Brit- 
ish convoy, was saluted by the thunder 
of hundreds of cannon. 

I shall never forget the quaint, remark 
of an old man at the railway station. 
I inquired of him, on the morning of 
the ceremony, at what time the train 
bearing the remains and the delegation 
from London would arrive. " Well, 
sir, we are expecting of 'im down at nine 
o'clock," placing an indefinable emphasis 
on the " 'im" which indicated that in his 
mind the departed merchant was still a 
vital personality. 

George Peabody certainly left the 
impress of his talent as well as of his 
munificence upon the great capital, and 
it is almost startling to those who had 
known him in life to come upon his 
bronze figure, serenely seated in the 
midst of the hustling crowd, hard by 
the Royal Exchange. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



533 



CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT. 



England's " Silent Highway." — The Sources of Her Greatness. — Her Protection of Her Trad?. — Wool- 
wich the Mighty. — Greenwich ami Its History. — The Procession of Commerce. — London's Port. 
— The Docks and Their Revenue. — London Bridge. — Dore in London. 



WE have said elsewhere that England 
has carefully defended the passes 
of the Thames, the great " silent high- 
way," as it is called, one of the chief 
avenues of the commerce of the world, 
and the most miraculous spectacle, when 
international commerce is in its normal 
condition, on the face of the earth. To 
the stranger, however, the first sight of 
the Thames is a disappointment, for no 
foreigner can share the feeling of the 
British tar who, on returning from a long 
cruise in the Levant, looked up with rap- 
ture to the cloudy sky above him, as 
he entered the Thames, and exclaimed, 
" Thank God ! none of your beastly blue 
sky here ! " There are moments in sum- 
mer when the spectacle of the Thames, 
bearing upon its noble in-coming tide its 
majestic procession of barges and light- 
ers, filled with riches from all parts of 
the world, is not only picturesque but pos- 
itively beautiful. Through the hazy 
shimmer of a June afternoon this vision 
of the wealth borne obediently by Father 
Thames every day into the metropolis, 
is one not to be forgotten. But the 
blackness of November is nowhere so 
black and dreary as by the Thames side ; 
nowhere does architecture seem so spec- 
tral, fantastic ; nowhere misery so re- 
pulsive, so frightful. The creatures that 
cower in the recesses of Westminster 
Bridge seem far more wretched than the 
poor of Naples or of Dublin. By day 
the mud-flats, when the tide is out, with 
their fringe of huge brown, or almost 



blackened, buildings, with the mazes of 
alleys and piers, and innumerous small 
craft flying hither and you, as if hope- 
less of finding their way in the general 
gloom, — all these give a shiver, and one 
is inclined to turn from the contempla- 
tion of them. 

If the Seine may now and then be said 
to woo to suicide, it is difficult to imag- 
ine the Thames as tempting to self-mur- 
der. It is something to fly from, and 
although in its muddy waters and its 
slimy ooze poor wretches do now and 
then find death, suicide being punished 
with the greatest rigor by English mag- 
istrates, as a crime against society, even 
the hungry are wary of jumping in. 

On the Lower Thames we have the 
commerce, and the military preparations 
which advance and protect commerce, 
hand in hand. He who watches the 
arrival of the stately fleets from every 
clime under heaven, understands why 
Woolwich, — the vast arsenal and prep- 
aration field of the army, — has its ex- 
istence. England fully understands the 
maxim that " he who trades must be 
prepared to fight," and Woolwich is a 
standing advertisement of the British 
willingness to protect her commerce, and 
to seize upon any favorable opportunity 
for aggression where her commerce may 
find a new outlet. 

So too, Greenwich, in its historic re- 
pose and monumental calm, represents 
the nobility of the British marine in a 
worthy manner. There are broad lawus, 






5:?4 



EUROPE IN STORM ASH CALM. 



noble arcades, great gray halls filled 
with pictures of battles on sea. chapels, 
monuments, and comfortable homes for 
tin' old sea-dogs, who accept the homage 
and the gratitude of the nation with be- 
coming dignity. Greenwich gives one 
an idea of what England has done; 
Woolwich is a perpetual reminder of 
what England can do. 

There is not much that is romantic on 
the Lower Thames. Gravesend, below 
which are the six great military works 
which protect the entrance to the river, 
is pretty enough in summer time, and is 
full <>t" historical souvenirs. There it 
was that, in 1522, the great emperor, 
Charles Y.. embarked with Henry VIII. 
and Cardinal Wolsey in a procession of 
barges waiting to receive them; there 
that Henry VIII. landed when he was 
on his way to invade France; and there 
that Charles I., when he was a prince, 
and when starting on his harum-scarum 
trip to the court of Spain, narrowly es- 
caped recognition and arrest by the 
ferryman for whom he had no silver. 
and whose calm he was obliged to cross 

with a piece of gold. 

From Gravesend, in the old days, cum- 
brous barges, sometimes marvellously 
decorated with carved and gilded orna- 
ments, used to ascend the Thames; and 
it was not uncommon to see a royal train 
of these barges, thirty-five or forty in 
number, slowly making their way to the 
upper reaches of the river, escorting 
some majesty who had come from foreign 
parts ami landed at Gravesend. To- 
day, the town is a yachting station, where 
the Royal Thames Yacht Club lias its 
head-quarters, in the season, and where 
thousands of fashionable folk go when- 
ever the races arc announced. Up river, 
a little way, is Greenhithe, another 
favorite resort for yachtsmen, and re- 
nowned as the place from which Sir 



John Franklin sailed, in 1845, on his dis- 
astrous voyage to tile Arctic Ocean. 
Still farther up, on the left, is the noble 
park at Greenwich, on a lofty point in 
which stands the famous observatory, an 
humble group of buildings without any 
architectural pretensions whatever. 
Greenwich is famous for that peculiar 
delicacy of the Thames, the infinitely 
little whitebait, at whose shrine annually 
worship all the ministers of the Crown, 
who even go down to Greenwich to in- 
dulge in a dinner at which speeches. 
>uppo>ed to l.e pregnant with the coming 
political policy of the year, are pro- 
nounced. 

The old manor of Greenwich was a 
royal residence in the fourteenth century, 
and it ison record that Edward 1. "made 
an offering of seven shillings at each 
holy cross" in the chapel of the Yirgin 
at Greenwich in 1300. There stood, in 
! t.'i:!. a palace, romantically known as 
the Manor of Plaisaunce. This was 
owned by Humphrey, Duke of Glouces- 
ter, and at his death, the manor and the 
palace reverted to the Crown. Henry 
VIII., who was horn at Greenwich, was 
very fond of the old town, and spent 
large sums of money in the .'lection. 
says an ancient chronicler, of sumptuous 
houses. •• Greenwich," says Lambarde, 
••was. when Henry VIII. came to the 
throne, a pleasant, perfect, and princely 
palace." There the king married his 
first wife, Katharine of Aragon ; there he 
astonished all England by introducing 
at the feast of Christinas, in 1511, a 
masked dance " after the maner of 
Italic:" and there, in 1533, the Princess 
Elizabeth was horn. Greenwich Hos- 
pital, which covers a wider area than any 
royal palace of England except Windsor, 
is. to my thinking, one of the finest 
buildings on the Thames. There is 
nothing in central London, not even 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



535 



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536 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Somerset House, which can be compared 
with it. Its lofty cupolas and its hand- 
some colonnades rival in beauty the finest 
of the continental palaces ; and the 
" painted hall " is one of the most unique 
museums in Europe. From the observ- 
atory there is a pretty view of the river 
and the perpetual procession of ships. 
It is said that this observatory stands 
upon the site of a tower which, in Eliza- 
beth's time, was called " Mirefleur," and 
is supposed to be the " Tower of Mira- 
llori's," referred to in the celebrated 
romance of "Amadis de Gaul." 

In Woolwich, over opposite, but few 
things of importance have ever hap- 
pened. The town is mean and poor in 
appearance, straggling along the Thames 
side in uncomely fashion. The inhabi- 
tants have a local witticism to the effect 
that " more wealth passes through 
Woolwich than through any other town 
in the world." But, unfortunately, this 
wealth is in the holds of ships which do 
not stop there. The Royal Dock-yard 
extends along the river for more than a 
mile on the western side of the town, 
and, like that at Deptford, was founded 
by Henry VIII. For at least three 
hundred and fifty years the work of 
preparing and maintaining England's su- 
premacy at, sea went on almost uninter- 
ruptedly in this commonplace and ordi- 
nary-looking government establishment. 
Old Pepys, who was a ,L clerk of the 
acts of the navy," has told us much of 
Woolwich, and the great " business and 
confusion " which prevailed there in his 
time. In the latter half of the last cen- 
tury, and in the long wars at the begin- 
ning of the present one, Woolwich grew. 
The national strength seemed drained 
into it. Immense granite wharves and 
docks, ranges of workshops and ware- 
houses, sprang up ; and when steam and 
iron were brought into use in the navy, 



Sir John Rennie remodelled, with won- 
derful skill, all these docks and work- 
shops, created a vast steam-reverse 
basin, mast-slips, and river-walls, and 
Woolwich was soon as well equipped for 
building first-class iron steamers as it 
had been for sending forth the old 
wooden " first-rates." But it was found 
insufficient for the building of new armor- 
clad ships : their enormous tonnage could 
not be launched forth on so shallow and 
crowded a river ; and so, in course of 
time, Woolwich Dock-yard fell into dis- 
use, and has now been transferred to 
the War Department, and absorbed into 
the domain of the Royal Arsenal. This 
arsenal is the only one in the kingdom ; 
all other military establishments at dock- 
yards receive their supplies from Wool- 
wich, and from Woolwich go forth all 
the stores for the iunumerous campaigns 
of England in foreign lands. Ten 
thousand men are here, in normal times, 
constantly employed in buildings and 
yards, which cover three hundred and 
thirty-three acres ; and when England is 
making a special effort the number of 
workmen is nearly doubled. Here are 
the heavy artillery for the land and the 
sea service, — the carriages, the shot and 
shell, the cartridges, ammunition for 
small arms, torpedoes to protect the coast, 
and everything for the trade of war, 
which is a distinct branch of trade, — a 
trade to protect all other trades. 

In the chief laboratory there are more 
than live hundred machines of various 
sorts in operation. There the Martini- 
Henry bullet is made at the rate of a 
million a week, and, if need be, three 
millions weekly can be turned out. In 
the cap factory are machines producing 
thirty thousand caps per hour; and the 
gun factories, where the great thirty- 
eight-ton guns are made, and where one 
may see the eighty-one-ton gun, which, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



537 



with a charge of three hundred pounds, 
will send a shot of one thousand four 
hundred and sixty pounds with an initial 
velocity of one thousand six hundred 
and forty feet per second, are very ex- 
tensive. The coiling machines, the fur- 
nace, with its forty-ton hammer, which 
cost £50,000, with its steam-crane, 
which can lift one hundred tons with 
its tongs, which weigh sixty tons, 
and takes a dozen men to manoeu- 
vre, with the doors of its furnaces, 
which look like the gates of infernal 
region, with its turnery, where the tubes 
and breech-pieces of thirty-eight-ton 
guns are handled like toys, with its 
rifle ordnance factory, its uniting fur- 
naces, its pattern-room, in which exact 
duplicates of every kind of gun made in 
the arsenal are shown to those of whom 
the authorities are not suspicious, the 
forges, with their steam-hammers, their 
travelling-cranes, their lathes and shears, 
and hydro-pneumatic apparatus, all on 
a gigantic scale, — all these form a daz- 
zling galaxy of wonders, and confirm 
the opinion of the visiting foreigner that 
order and foresight are the first qualities 
in the Anglo-Saxon mind. 

The stores, or Control Department, as 
it is called in the military jargon, form a 
most extraordinary spectacle at Wool- 
wich, and from these stores ten thousand 
troops can be at any moment supplied 
with everything that is necessary for im- 
mediate entrance on a campaign. This 
is not so astonishing now as compared 
with the matchless preparations for war 
in Germany ; but at the time when it was 
first done, there was nothing like it, or 
at all to compare with it, in all Europe. 

But we must not linger at Woolwich 
longer than to peep at the garrison 
buildings and the Royal Artillery bar- 
racks, — one of the few imposing struct- 
ures in the town, glance at the Crimean 
memorial, the bronze statue of John 



Bell, or at the great bronze gun captured 
in India in 1828, or at the Royal Artil- 
lery Museum. and the Military Academy, 
founded by George II. It was at this 
academy that the unlucky Prince Im- 
perial, the son of Napoleon III., finished 
his military education as a queen's 
scholar, and his school-fellows paraded 
atChiselhurst when his body was brought 
home from South Africa, and buried be- 
side that of his father in the new home 
of the Imperial exiles. 

Hatton, the writer, in the early part 
of the last century, said that London 
with Westminster resembled the shape 
of a great whale, Westminster being the 
under-jaw ; St. James's Park, the mouth ; 
Pall Mall, etc., northward, the upper- 
jaw ; Cock and Pie Fields, or the meet- 
ing of the seven streets, the eye ; the 
rest, with the city, and southward to 
Smithfield, the body ; and thence east- 
ward to Limehouse, the tail ; " and it is 
probably," he adds, in. his quaint descrip- 
tion, " according to the proportion, the 
largestof towns, as the whale is of fishes." 

From a point below Woolwich to Lon- 
don Bridge the river is known as the 
Port of London, — a port six and a 
half miles long, with a depth, at low 
water, of even twelve feet at London 
Bridge. The tide of this Thames is 
quite remarkable. The water rises twice 
a day to the height of seveuteen feet at 
the Bridge, and, in extreme spring tides, 
to twenty-two feet. On this Lower 
Thames one finds perpetual amusement 
in the contemplation of the docks, on 
which more than 8,000,000 sterling 
have been expended in the present cent- 
ury. Nearly all of them are on the 
cast side of the town, and have been 
brought into existence by joint-stock 
companies. Altogether they cover about 
eight hundred acres. The most exten- 
sive of them, the West India Docks, 
begun in 1800 by William Pitt, were 



538 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



finished in two years. Their urea, of 
three hundred acres, is surrounded by 
walls five feet thick, and the chief im- 
port dock is one hundred and seventy 
yards long by one hundred and sixty- 
six wide. It is said that in the ware- 
houses of these docks one 
hundred and eighty thousand 

tens of g Is can lie stored at 

once. In 1813 the gross 




GUARDIANS OF TTIK TOWER. 

revenue returned on a capital of £1,200,- 
000 of this company was £449,000. The 
St. Catherine's Docks, close by the 
frowning ancient Tower of London, and 
near (he centre of flic great commercial 
metropolitan market, furnish an admir- 
able instance of the resistless power of 
commerce in making room for itself, 
even in the most crowded centres. The 
creation of these docks, found necessary 



in ISl'7, necessitated the displacement 
of nearly twelve thousand inhabitants 

and the pulling down of thirteen hun- 
dred houses. The Surrey, the London, 
the East India, the Commercial Docks, 
all cover scores of acres ; and in one 
single warehouse in the London Docks 
one hundred and twenty thousand chests 
of tea can be stored atone time. These 
are the great wine docks of London ; and 
here from forty to forty-five thousand 
pipes of wine are always in stock. 

London Bridge is certainly one of the 
most curious and remarkable spectacles 
in Europe. Seen from oueof the bridges 
above, upon the Thames, or from the 
shore, it presents to the view an endless 
procession of loaded vans, drays, car- 
riages, carts, and omnibuses ; and, as one 
cannot sec the wheels of these vehicles, 
they seem to be moving by magic along 
the stone coping of the great structure. 
In the immediate neighborhood of this 
artery of travel, spanning the stream, 
are some of the noblest of the London 
monuments. The Tower is not far 
away ; the streets by the water side are 
crowded with traffic to an extent the 
description of which would seem almost 
incredible. Blockades exist for hours; 
draymen expend their vital force in 
oaths innumerable. All in vain : the 
avenues of London are too small for the 
commerce which encumber them. Dord 
was fond of wandering in this part of 
London, and once told me how much he 
enjoyed the stupefaction of the team- 
sters, who, engaged ill a blockade, and 
wedged in among other teams, could not 
prevent him from sketching them, but 
Hew into a passion and shook their fists 
at him. This weird and curious quarter 
of London especially struck the fancy 
of the great French artist, who has left 
on record most truthful impressions of 
the long and narrow alleys lined with high 
warehouses. 



EUROPE JX STORM AXD CALM. 



M9 



CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE. 



Up River. — The Historic Thames. — The University Races. — Oxford anil Cambridge. — The Great Race 
of 1869. — Harvard ve. Oxford. — Putney. — Wimbledon. — Hammersmith. — Mortlake. — Thames 
Tactics. — A Reminiscence of Charles Dickens. — His Powers as an After Dinner Speaker. 



ABOVE Blackfriar's bridge the 
Thames has been fringed within 
the last twenty years by a stately em- 
bankment which rivals the handsomest 
quays of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. 
Ranged along this fine embankment are 
the historic gardens of the Temple, with 
their monumental new structures in 
striking contrast with the older, dingy, 
and more interesting ones of Somerset 
House, one of the finest monuments in 
London, with huge masks of ocean and 
the eight rivers, the Thames, the Hurn- 
ber, the Meuse, the Medway, the Dee, 
the Tweed, the Tyue, and the Severn, 
on the quay stones of the river arches or 
water gates. This Thames front of 
Somerset House is enriched with columns, 
and pilasters iu Venetian style. In 
front is a terrace under which is the 
central water gate, and on the balustrade 
is a colossal figure of the Thames. This 
is one of the few monuments which were 
created iu the reign of George III., and 
in this handsome building the Inland 
Revenue has its home. Here the births, 
deaths, and marriages of the inhabitants 
of England are inscribed. Just above 
Somerset House is the Waterloo Bridge, 
which is led up to by Wellington street, 
a fact which never fails to attract the 
attention of Frenchmen visiting Loudon. 
The new embankment describes a stately 
curve, and sweeps around past the new 
handsome quarter where once stood 
Northumberland House, but now filled 
with mammoth hotels and clubs, and 



theatres as fine as those of Vienna or 
Paris; past the Whitehall Gardens and 
the governmental quarters, and finishes 
at Westminster Bridge, just beyond which 
stand the Houses of Parliament. On 
the other side of the Thames we have 
a Loudon, unimpressive, yet startling 
in magnitude, a labyrinth of streets, 
all of which look very much alike, 
with uudecorated house fronts, with 
shops which seem all cut out after 
one pattern, with here and there vast 
breweries, potteries, warehouses, and 
an occasional mansion rising out of the 
surrounding mediocrity. Everywhere 
one is oon fronted with the spectacle of 
the daily struggle for food on the part 
of the very poor. Everywhere is the 
same sharp contrast between the luxury 
attendant upon wealth, and the crime 
attendant upon long-coutinued poverty. 
The great rambling structure over the 
Thames opposite Westminster Palace 
attracts your attention ; it is a hospital. 
Further up is Lambeth with the Arch- 
bishop's Palace, — Lambeth, a great, city 
by itself, confronted on the other side by 
Westminster, another vast community, 
and one, it is said, where more wretched- 
ness and misery are concentrated than in 
any other part of London. Yet through 

it run avenues filled with luxurious I scs 

and with splendid hotels. Out of it 
rises the great gray Abbey, and near by 
are the breezy expanses of St. James's 
Park ; and in ten minutes one may walk 
out of slums such as uo other capital in 



540 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Christendom can show, to the very gates 
of Buckingham Palace, where, in the 
season, the Queen receives, at what she is 
pleased to call a Drawing-room, those 
ladies who have arrived at the felicity of 
a court presentation. 

Passing in review our journey up the 
Thames, we find that the first con- 
spicuous object on the stream was Wool- 
wich, and midway between Woolwich 
the Arsenal, and Windsor the Palace, 
is the Parliament House, whence the 
policy of the nation radiates upwards to 
the sovereign and downwards to the engi- 
neers and artisans, who put the national 
will in force. But we will come back 
to the Parliament later on, and meantime 
continue our journey up the stream past 
the walls of gloomy Millbank Prison, 
past Chelsea, with its memories of Car- 
lvle, and its lows of unromantic-looking 
houses, and on to Putney, Hammersmith, 
Mortlake, Richmond, Twickenham, and 
Hampton Court, picturesque and verdur- 
ous resorts, which seem to belong to 
another world when compared with the 
oozy marshes and mud-flats of the lower 
stream. The stretch of river from Put- 
ney, or, more properly speaking, from 
Hammersmith Bridge to Mortlake, is 
specially renowned as the annual contest 
ground of the University crews ; and 
the charms of this lied of stream have 
been recited in prose and verse by a 
hundred authors. All classes of London 
society are annually agitated over several 
events which belong to the domain of 
sport, and in other countries would 
interest only a certain elass. In the 
British Islands no one feels above attend- 
ing a horse-race, and aquatic sports are 
distinctly within the range of aristocratic 
amusements. 

Of late years boating and boat-racing 
have ceased t<> be classed as healthful 
sports, perhaps because of the furious 



onslaught made upon them by Charles 
Reade, perhaps because so many cham- 
pions who were thought to he certain of 
long and robust life have turned up as 
confirmed invalids of shaky tenure of 
existence just after their University 
course and boat triumphs were over. 

It is not difficult to understand why 
the inhabitants of an island and the 
greatest sailors in the world should be 
intensely interested in a contest of oars- 
men ; but the stranger is struck with the 
vehemence of opinion manifested on this 
weighty topic even by cabmen, and huck- 
sters, and persons who might be supposed 
to confine their interest to subjects con- 
nected with their daily toil. Charles 
Dickens reported that, shortly before the 
international contest on the Thames in 
18(J'J he heard one cabman confidentially 
remark to another that he hoped the 
Americans would win, but that he was 
sure they would not. The cabman's con- 
fident prophecy was correct : the Ameri- 
cans did not win, and undoubtedly 
because of the reasons which were 
assigned by their English critics. There 
was never a race in the whole calendar 
of the annual contests which awakened 
so much interest and national feeling as 
this one, in which the trans-Atlantic 
cousins had at first seemed to make so 
good afigure. Their training was watched 
with jealous scrutiny, and renowned 
boatmen like Harry Kelly indulged in 
daily mysterious bulletins, all of which 
seemed to point to the conclusion that 
the laurels would be carried over sea. 
The old University of Harvard had sent 
a goodly crew in the highest sense repre- 
sentative of the whole country. There 
was even a man from far-off Oregon, 
— a man who had but to appear on the 
river to excite admiring cheers, for he 
was a young Hercules. Trainers, writers, 
and loungers spent a merry three weeks' 



EUROPE IN STORM ANn CALM. 



541 



time at ancient Putney, walking over 
the breezy downs of Wimbledon, and 
along the banks of the stream, drop- 
ping in at boating-clubs, lunching in 
balconies overlooking reedy hills, or 
following at respectful distance the flash- 
ing oar blades of the practising crews. 
The International race was appointed 
for the midsummer season, long after 
the usual time for the University race, 
and only a few weeks before the fashion- 
able world usually departs from the 
capital. But, despite its lateness in the 
season, it seemed as if all London, if 
not all England, had come forth to wit- 
ness the contest. 

The various points along the stream 
on this University race-course are among 
the most interesting in the neighborhood 
of London. Putney, itself a part of 
the manor of Wimbledon, was a favorite 
resort of Queen Elizabeth, where she 
visited old John Lacy, a wealthy mem- 
ber of the Clothworkers' Company of 
her time ; and one of the last visits of 
her life was to Putney, where she dined 
on her way to Richmond, but two 
months before her death. At Putney the 
parliamentary generals had their head- 
quarters when Charles I. was at Hamp- 
ton Court. Cromwell long had his 
abode in a house in Putney, although 
the exact site of the edifice is unknown 
to-day. Just across the stream is Ful- 
ham, with a noble lawn shaded by mag- 
nificent trees, and a bishop's residence 
not far away. At Putney, too, Gibbon 
was born, in 1737, and the house in 
which the great historian spent his youth 
and a portion of his mature life was 
afterwards the residence of the cele- 
brated traveller, Robert Wood, author of 
the "Ruins of Palmyra." At Putney 
Heath, in 1652, occurred the famous 
duel between Lord Chandos and Colonel 
Henry Compton ; and there, too, in May, 



1798, William Pitt, Prime Minister of 
England, stood up, pistol in hand, against 
William Tiernev, a Member of Parlia- 
ment ; but no bloodshed ensued. Eleven 
years later, ou this same heath, two 
cabinet ministers fought a duel, and 
George Canning was shot and danger- 
ously wounded by Lord Castlereagh. 

The scene at the water-side at Putney 
in the boating season is very animated. 
The boat-houses, simple in construction, 
are thronged by smart young gentlemen in 
white and blue flannel, — gentlemen whose 
faces bear evidence of prolonged study 
or familiarity with affairs in the city, as 
well as gentlemen who appear never to 
have undertaken anything at all beyond 
the laborious task of amusing them- 
selves. The inns are odd aud old to the 
American eye, but they are quiet, com- 
fortable ; and the tyrannous waiters, who 
tell you what you want, and even insist 
upon what you shall have, are service- 
able when once one has learned their 
peculiarities. This was the starting 
place for the Thames regatta when it 
was in its prime, and now the Oxford 
and Cambridge crews both take up their 
abodes at the famous Star and Gaiter, 
or at a private house, while undergoing 
what is called their " coaching." For 
ten days before the celebrated race, and 
for a day or two afterwards, Putney is 
transformed into a kind of fair. Ambu- 
lating negro minstrels, so called, being 
merely cockney singers witli their faces 
blackened, indulge in sentimental ditties, 
after which they demand sixpences and 
pennies from every passer-by. The 
classic game of Aunt Sally is in full 
swing, and boating parties, composed of 
ambitious young gentlemen who only 
know how to catch " crabs," and ros} - - 
faeed damsels who are afraid of the 
water, are innumerable. Then, on the 
great day, all London proceeds to 



542 



EUROPE IN STORM AMD CALM. 



install itself on house-roofs, on bridges, 
on towpaths, in every nook and corner 
whence a glimpse of the race can he 
obtained, and indulges in unrestrained 
excitement during the few minutes of 
the struggle. Colors are worn as proudly 
as in the days of York and Lancaster, 
and the return to the centre of the town 
by every imaginable sort of craft on the 
river, by every vehicle, from an aristo- 
cratic drag to an humble omnibus, is not 
so indecorous as the return from the 
Derby, but is characterized by almost as 
much noise and excitement. 

It was from a point just below Ham- 
mersmith bridge that the International 
race was started, and that the Harvard 
crew set off with such a tremendously 
rapid stroke that those unfamiliar with 
Thames tactics at, once accorded them 
the victory. Hut the old boatmen and 
the experienced habituds of the race 
shook their heads, and said that that 
stroke would not win. It was not far 
from winning, despite its bad form; hut 
the knowledge of the course and the 
peculiar slow and steady stroke of the 
Oxfords was destined to win. England 
put all its national pride into one great 
shout on that bright afternoon when the 
Oxfords came in ahead at Mortlake, 
and there could have been no doubt, if 
any had existed before, after that shout 
was heard, that, in matters of rivalry, 
England considers Americans as for- 
eigners quite as much as if there were 
a total difference of language and of 
manners, as in the case of the French or 
the Germans. 

Hammersmith is celebrated for the 
site of the old Dove coffee-house, which 
was renowned in the last century, and 
which is now a little inn called the 
Doves. A room overlooking the river 
is still pointed out as the place where 
Thomson wrote part of, his " Seasons," 



composing the lines about winter while 
looking on the frozen Thames and the 
country round about, coveted with snow. 
From the window out of which the old 
poet looked there is a fine view of the 
long reach of the Thames across Chis- 
wiek Eyot far away. In the parish 
church, is a monument to Lord Sheffield, 
Earl <>f Mulgrave, who was tiie com- 
mander of a squadron against the Span- 
ish Armada, and was knighted by Queen 
Elizabeth for his services. In Ham- 
mersmith, once stood the celebrated 
Brandenburg House, now demolished. 
It was built by Sir Nicholas Crispe, in 
the reign of Charles I., and was one of 
the most splendid of English resiliences 
even in that time of general splendor. 
Fairfax made this house his head-quar- 
ters in 1 fit 7, and many years after the 
house was given to Margaret Hughes, a 
pretty actress, of whom Pepys tells us 
indiscreetly that " she was a mighty 
pretty woman, but not modest." It was 
in Brandenburg House thai Queen Caro- 
line, the wife of George IV.. rested dur- 
ing her trial in the House of Lords ; and 
there, too, she died, in 1821. It was 
shortly after her death that the house 
was pulled down. 

It is not far from Putney to Wimble- 
don, where the great annual contests of 
the riflemen of Great Britain are held. 
The encampment of these marksmen 
lasts for several days during the summer 
season, and is visited daily by thousands 
of people from the centre of London. 
A friendly rivalry is kept up between 
the rifle teams of the north and south, 
the British, the Scotch, and the Irish 
competing witheach other in skill, and the 
whole occasion reminds an American of 
an old-fashioned training-day. Some- 
times, when the season is rainy, the 
mushroom booths and buildings of the 
encampment are but pour shelters, and 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



543 



the riflemen pass a miserable week. 
Now and then royalty lends its prestige 
to the matches, which are controlled 
with the greatest rigor, and the reports 
of which attract great attention in all 
parts of the kingdom. 

Among other interesting points along 
the University race-course 



Of 



»t 



resque with swans' nests, was the point 
at which the International boat-race 
between Harvard and Oxford was prac- 
tically decided. It was there that the 
struggle was the sternest, and that the 
Oxford tactics definitely asserted them- 
selves. At Chiswick lived Pope before 
his retirement to Twickenham, and in 
the British .Museum there are many let- 
ters addressed to " Mr. Pope, in his 
house in New Buildings, Chiswick." 
There also lived Rousseau when he 
was visiting England. The author of 
tin' " Nouvelle Heloise " boarded at 
a small green-grocer's shop in the 
town, and a. writer of the time tells 
us that lie used to ;sit in the shop 
and listen to the talk of the custom- 
ers, thus learning the Enar- 




BOAT-RACE ON THE THAMES. 



on the Thames, Chiswick is of first-rate. 
Here is the famous villa of the Duke of 
Devonshire ; and here Hogarth's house is 
still shown, and his tomb is hard by his 
old residence. Chiswick Hall was once 
the residence of the masters of West- 
minster, and is better known in these 
days as the Chiswick Press, from which 
such noble specimens of English typog- 
raphy have been sent forth. The Chis- 
wick Ait or P^yot, an osier bed, pictu- 



lish language. Charles Holland, the 
celebrated comedian, was also born at 
Chiswick, and was buried from the 
church there. He was the son of a 
baker, and after the funeral Foote said, 
"We have just shoved the little baker 
into his oven." 

The end of the race-course, Mortlake, 
is but a short distance to the east of 
Richmond, and was an old residence of 
the Archbishops of Canterbury. There, 



544 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Anselm celebrated the famous Whitsun- 
tide of 1099, and tliere, one of the arch- 
bishops died of grief, after his excom- 
munication by Pope John XXI. There, 
too, pictorial tapestry was first woven in 
England, Sir Francis Crane having es- 
tablished works there in rivalry with the 
royal tapestry works in France. Many 
portraits of Crane and Van Dyck were 
wrought at Mortlake in tapestry, and 
Charles I. was munificent in his patron- 
age of this establishment. The Mort- 
lake copies in tapestry of the Raphael 
cartoons are still to be met with in Eng- 
land. Under the floor of the church in 
Mortlake lies Dr. Dee, the most renowned 
of English astrologers; and there, too, 
is buried Partridge, the almanac-maker, 
whose burial Steele described in the 
" Tatler ; " and in the same church lies 
Phillips, the fellow-actor of Shakespeare, 
who left, as one of his bequests, a thirty- 
shilling piece in gold to the immortal 
poet. 

Shortly after the International boat- 
race, in 1869, the defeated Harvard crew 
was entertained by one of the aristocratic 
London rowing-clubs at a grand dinner 
at the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham. 
This Crystal Palace, which was built out 
of materials taken from the edifice of the 
noted World's Fair of 1851, crowns the 
summit of pretty Sydenham hill, not far 
from London, and contains within its 
roomy corridors a series of Egyptian, 
Greek, Spanish, Assyrian, Byzantine, and 
mediaeval courts illustrative of archi- 
tecture, as well as numerous museums, 
theatres, aquariums, aviaries, and other 
curiosities calculate! to strike the public 
fancy. In one of its stately dining-rooms, 
overlooking the beautiful gardens, the 
dinner of the conquerors was given to the 
conquered, and a goodly company of Eng- 
lish celebrities gathered to soften the 
defeat of the strangers. It has often been 



said of Charles Dickens that he was the 
prince of after-dinner speakers ; but 
never did he distinguish himself with 
more charm than on this occasion, when 
he was sorely puzzled what to say. 
Dickens was then beginning to show 
signs of the extreme fatigue which he 
had undergone in his later years, but he 
knew how to summon, despite physical 
weariness, the vivacity which, added to 
his humor and felicity of diction, made 
him irresistible. 

When he arose to begin the speech of 
the evening, at the close of this banquet, 
he stood as if completely lost and abashed 
for some two minutes, during which 
people began to whisper and to gossip, 
wondering what might be the cause of 
this strange hesitation. But, presently 
commencing in a low voice, he recited a 
simple anecdote concerning the r6le of 
Harvard in the great civil war in America. 
He told the story of the Harvard Memo- 
rial, and before he had spoken a dozen 
sentences, he had not only awakened the 
greatest sympathy but the mostprofound 
interest with and in the guests of the 
evening. From the pathos of the sacri- 
fices of the children of the great Univer- 
sity during the war, to sparkling and half- 
satirical comments on the uselessness of 
sending the nervous American into the 
moist English climate to grapple with the 
sinewy sons of Albion, was a leap which 
Dickens made with dexterity and safety ; 
and when he sat down he bad not 
only apologized for the defeat of the 
Americans as well as any one of them- 
selves could have done it, but he had 
given, in complete and admirable fashion, a 
little glimpse of the university life beyond 
the sea. — a glimpse which otherwise the 
English public would not have obtained. 
The homage and deference paid to Dick- 
ens, as a master in his art, and one of 
the foremost writers of his time, was 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



545 



well shown on this evening, when Eng- 
lishmen of far wider accomplishments 
than his cheerfully took second place, 
bowing before the celebrity which had 
been won by the exercise for a quarter 
of a century of one of the most dazzling 
and remarkable talents of the epoch. Only 
a year later, Dickens lay in Westminster 
Abbey, and of all the sorrowful messages 
sent over sea, there were none more 
sincere than those which came from the 
children of old Harvard. 

Beyond this sinuous course devoted to 
the water-sports, the Thames bends 
away into pretty flats, fringed with wil- 
lows and with green lawns, where, in 
summer time, the artist moors his house- 
boat, or the privileged sportsman stalks 
abroad with his gun. Far away is the 
great botanical establishment at Kew 
Gardens, fringed round about with 
handsome towns and villas, which look 
seductive from a distance, but are, when 
closely examined, proved to be built in 
flimsiest fashion. All London, indeed, 
is hemmed with loosely and carelessly 
built houses, which rent for modest 
sums, but which are soon out of repair. 
Building is a gigantic speculation, dear 
to the heart of the London capitalist, 
but it has brought sorrow to thousands 
of moneyed men. who have desired too 
large returns for their reckless expendi- 
ture. 

Kew lias a rather ugly-looking church, 
in which the organ, long used by Handel, 
still makes music. In the church-yard 
lies the great Gainsborough, landscape 
and portrait painter, and there formerly 
stood Suffolk House, the residence of 
one of the great Dukes of Suffolk. An 
old chronicle tells us that, in 1595, 
Queen Elizabeth dined at Kew with Sir 
John Puckei'ing, Lord Keeper of the 



Great Seal. "Her entertainment for 
that meal was great, and exceedingly 
costly. At her first lighting, she had a 
tine fanne, with a handle garnisht with 
diamonds. When she was in the middle 
way between the garden gate and the 
house, there came running towards her 
one with a nosegay in his hand, and deliv- 
ered yt unto her with a short, well- 
pened speech. Yt had in yt a very rich 
Jewell, with many pendants of unfirl'd 
diamonds, valewed at £400 at least. 
After dinner, in the privey chamber, he 
gave her a fair pair of virginals. In her 
bedchamber, he presented her with a 
gown and juppin, which things were 
pleasing to her Ilignes ; and, to grace 
his lordship the more, she of herself 
took from him a salt, a spoone, and a 
forcke of faire agatte." 

Kew has been the residence of innu- 
merable celebrities. There Sir William 
Chambers long had charge of the forma- 
tion of the botanical garden ; and in 
176f> he published an account of the 
various temples and ornamental build- 
ings which he hail erected in them. 
George III. for a long time lived at Kew 
House, and appears to have been very 
much the slave of his servants, for it is 
recorded of him that, after the death of 
his head-gardener, he made a personal 
visit to the under-gardener, and in a 
tone of much gratification said, " Brown 
is dead : now you and I can do what we 
please here 1 ." After George III. 's death, 
until the accession of the present Queen, 
Kew was apparently neglected. In 1840, 
the gardens were adopted as :i national 
establishment, and, under the able man- 
agement of the present directors, the 
botanical establishment has become the 
richest, if not the most beautiful, in all 
Europe. 



546 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY. 



Richmond and its Romance. — Richmond Hill. — The " Star and Garter." — The Richmond Theatre. — The 
Thames Valley. — Twickenham. — The Orleans Exiles, and Their English Home. — Strawberry 
Hill. — Hampton ( 'ourt. — Wolsey and Cromwell. — The Royal Residence. — Windsor and Its Origin. 



IT is a little more than eight miles 
from Hyde Park corner to Rich- 
mond ; but the transition is as great as 
if the distance were five hundred miles. 
The aspect of gloom and severity which 
reigns in the metropolis the greater part 
of the year is entirely left behind, and 
one has before him, on Richmond Hill, 
a vast and noble prospect of parks and 
winding rivers, of stately trees, pretty 
bowers, and comfortable villas. 

There is nothing exactly like the view 
from Richmond Hill to be found in any 
other part of Europe. The mellowness 
of the landscape, with its prolusion of 
beautiful elms, is very striking; the 
atmospheric effects are soft, and lend a 
kind of enchantment to the great vista 
of the park. Overlooking the most 
beautiful section of this pleasure ground 
is the famous " Star and Garter" Hotel, 
renowned in the annals of gastronomy, 
and the scenes of many famous reunions 
of statesmen, and of the literary and 
artistic guilds. Mr. Barnett Smith, in 
his "Life of Gladstone," tells us of a 
speech made by the Premier when he 
was a much younger man, at the " Star 
and Garter," and of the phenomenal 
impression which the eloquence of the 
statesman, afterwards to be so cele- 
brated, then produced. It was on the 
occasion of the visit of the Emperor of 
Russia to England, and at his dinner 
Mr. Gladstone proposed the toast of the 
" Prosperity of the Church of S(. James 
in Jerusalem, and of her first bishop." 



" Never," says the author, " was heard 
a more exquisite speech. It flowed like 
a gentle and translucent stream : and, as 
in the second portion, he addressed 
Alexander directly, representing the 
greatness and the difficulty of the charge 
confided to him, the latter at first 
covered his face from emotion; then 
arose and returned thanks with dignity 
as well as with feeling. Subsequently 
we drove back to town in the clearest 
starlight, Gladstone continuing with 
unabated animation to pour forth har- 
monious thoughts in melodious tone." 

Richmond is said to have got its 
present name by command of Henry 
VII., who, before the battle of Bosworth, 
was Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire ; 
but its old name shows that it was held 
in high esteem before the tenth century, 
for the splendor of its views and the 
charm of its great forests. It was 
called Syenes, which is supposed to be a 
corruption of the German Schon. There 
Edward I. had a country house : Edward 
III. died in the palace there : Richard II. 
lived in Richmond in the early years of 
his reign : there his first wife Ann of 
Bohemia died, whereupon In 1 cursed the 
place, and had the palace torn down. 
Then Henry V. had it rebuilt, and 
founded several " Houses of Religion." 
Early in 1492. Henry VII. held a grand 
tournament at Richmond, "upon the 
green without the gate of the said 
manor." There Philip I., King of Cas- 
tile, stayed for three months while the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Ml 



negotiations for his marriage with the 
Lady Margaret were in progress ; and 
there the Spanish monarch was enter- 
tained with great magnificence, and many 
notable feats of arms took place at the 
tournaments held in his honor. 

Henry VIII. held a series of splendid 
entertainments at Richmond, and there 
Cardinal Wolsey came now and then to 
reside, by permission of the King, after 
he had presented his newly-erected palace 
of Hampton Court to Henry. All 
through the succeeding centuries Rich- 
mond appears to have been a favorite 
resort for royalty. James I., in 1G10, 
gave Richmond to his son, Prince Henry. 
In 1647 the Parliament ordered the 
palace to be made read}' for the recep- 
tion of the King, but Charles refused to 
go there, contenting himself with an 
occasional hunting excursion in the then 
new park. At the time of the restora- 
tion the palace was dismantled, and the 
accounts of the time say that "several 
boat-loads of rich and curious effigies, 
formerly belonging to Charles I., but 
since alienated," were taken from Rich- 
mond to Whitehall in 1660. Thus, more 
than a century before the great French 
Revolution, the English did exactly for 
Richmond what the French were destined 
to do for Marly, the old palace in which 
Louis XIV. had spent his declining years. 

Richmond Palace is said to have 
covered an area of more than ten acres. 
In the middle of the eighteenth century 
" Richmond Green" was one of the most 
fashionable of suburban resorts, and 
there the fine gentlemen of the period 
came to play whist at the clubs on Satur- 
days and Sundays. " You will naturally 
ask," says one of the chroniclers of that 
time, " why they cannot play at whist 
in London on these two days as well as 
on the other live. Indeed, I cannot tell 
you, except that it is so established a 



fashion to go out of town at the end of 
the week that people do go, though it be 
only into another town." 

Richmond Lodge was a favorite abode 
of Caroline, wife of George II., and 
there she had costlier buildings than had 
been previously seen in England, erected 
on a gigantic scale. There she created 
a "hermitage," a "Merlin's cave," a 
"grotto," a dairy, and a menagerie, 
the interior of the "hermitage" was 
ornamented with busts of Newton and 
Locke; and the presiding genius of 
the locality was Robert Boyle, his head 
encircled with a halo of gilded rays. 
George III., who had little sympathy 
with the improvements made by Queen 
Caroline, had them all swept away, and, 
in a lit of spite, destroyed the terrace 
which she had built along the river, — a 
terrace which was said to be, at that 
time, the finest in Europe. 

Beyond the entrance of the gales of 
the Richmond Park, on Richmond Hill, 
is the prospect of which old Thomson 
wrote in his somewhat conventional verse 
■a century and a half'ago. Thomson and 
Turner have both celebrated the beauti- 
ful landscape, and, if they could come- 
back to earth now, would be shocked to 
see that the wavy ocean of tree-tops has 
been intruded upon here and there by 
prosaic lines of house-fronts. The view 
up the great valley of the Thames from 
Richmond Hill is thus described by Mr. 
Thorne in his charming work on the en- 
virons of London: "A thickly-wooded 
tract, relieved by open meadows and 
gentle undulations, where the eye rests 
always on the tranquil surface of the 
river, with its eyots, skiffs, and swal- 
lows ; and the beach-clad hills of Buck- 
inghamshire, the Surrey heaths and 
downs, and the Berkshire heights, over 
which dimly visible through a veil of 
purple haze — - 



54<S EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

i " Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.' (low of his Richmond villa. Mrs. Fitz- 

herbert lived on Richmond Hill when 

" ' Hampton House' with the elm- she won the affections of the Prince of 

groves and avenues of elm-walks on Wales, who afterwards became George 

one side of the river, and on (lie other IV. At the noted " Queensberry House" 

the dark massive forms of Hampton there was a brilliant coterie for many 

Court, and the long chestnut-avenues of years, until the Duke of Queensberry 

Bushey Park, are as prominent and effec- grew tired of his country-seat, where he 

five features in the landscape as when lie had entertained Pitt, Chatham, the 

Thomson wrote. But the 'raptured Duchess of Gordon, and other celebri- 
eve exulting ' looks from the terrace in ties of the time ; anil one day he left it 
vain for ' huge Augusta' or • the sister forever, saying that there was nothing 
hills which skirt her plain,' or even to make so much of in the Thames, and 
'lofty Harrow,' though the lights may that he "was quite weary of it. and 
be made out from the garden terrace its tlow, flow, flow, always the same." 
of the Star and Garter, and in clear The neighborhood is filled with splen- 
weather from some part or other of the did mansions, each one of which has 
park. The view is one of a wide ex- its history and legend, too long to re- 
pause of quiet, cultivated scenery. Its cite here. 

charm is not dependent on the hour or The Richmond Theatre has been la- 
the season. If may receive an added mous for more than two centuries and a 
grace or assume a nobler beauty at cer- half. The present edifice was built by 
tain seasons, or in any exceptional at- Garrick, and there Garrick, Liston, Mrs. 
mospheric phenomena : Imt it is alike Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, and Charles 
exquisite, seen, as we have seen ii. in Matthews often appeared. CharlesMat- 

tlic earliest dawn or broad daylight. thews the elder made his -'first, appear- 
when bathed in the crimson glory of a ance on any stage" at Richmond; and 
sinking sun, or lit by a full or waning there Edmund Kean died, in a small 

moon; in the first freshness of the room in a house attached to the theatre, 

spring, the full lealincss of summer, the Kean had. in his latest years, played 

sober gold of autumn, or the sombre many a time to " a beggarly accounl of 

depth of advancing winter." empty benches." 

At the Star and Garter Hotel Lou- II is a. pleasant walk through these in- 
ks Philippe staved for several months tensely interesting regions, from Rich- 
after his flight from Paris ; there Napo- mond to Twickenham, a village prettily 
Icon III., when he was a struggling placed on the Thames, between the high 
prince, now and then had apartments, ground of Strawberry Hill and a range 
when he had a windfall of money. The of verdant meadows Lacked by Rich- 
famous " Four-in-Hand Chili" used to nioud 1 1 ill and Park, on the other side of 
drive down and dine there every Sunday, the river. Horace Walpole was the 
and nearby Sir Joshua Reynolds gave his genius of this locality, ami has done 
pleasant little dinner parties in the sun- more than any one else to make Twick- 
shine, gathering about him the most cnhani celebrated. It is but a small 
eminent of his admirers. One of the hamlet, once owned by the monks of 
few landscapes which Reynolds painted Canterbury, hut, when the monasteries 
was a view from the drawing-room win- were suppressed, it was annexed to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



549 



Hampton Court, aud Charles I. gave it 
to his Queen. Then it was seized by the 
Parliament, and, after many changes of 
ownership, finally reverted to the ci'own. 
Twickenham is chiefly interesting as a 
favorite resort for exiles from the conti- 
nent during this century. Their Louis 
Philippe came in 1800, when he was 
Duke of Orleans, with his two brothers 
whom he had met in London for the first 
time since their exile from France after 
the great revolution. He took up his 
abode there, and their residence came to 
be known as " Orleans House." Des- 
tiny luc night Louis Philippe back to it 
again when he was a second time an ex- 
ile, half a century after his first visit. 
The old king bought it in 18")2, of 
Lord Kilmorey, who went to live near 
by, while the present Due d'Auniale took 
up his residence in Orleans House, and 
there held, until after 1870, when he re- 
turned to France, a kind of literary 
court. His spacious picture-gallery, his 
superb collection of ancient and modern 
pictures and drawings, miniatures, enam- 
els, MSS., and his exquisite library, 
were celebrated throughout Europe. 
Gradually all the members of tin- ex- 
iled family grouped themselves at 
Twickenham. The Comtede Paris lived 
in York House, the Prince de Joinville 
at Mount Lebanon, and the Due de Ne- 
mours at Bushey Hill. Twickenham was 
tin' head-quarters of Orleans polities, and 
so great was its prestige in the eyes of 
the Bourbons that Don Carlos of Spain 
went to live there in 1876, after his un- 
successful campaigns in the Carlist cause 
among the Basques in the Pyrenees. 
Tope's villa, at Twickenham, is also cele- 
brated. There the little poet resided 
until his death in 1744, and there he 
worked in his garden in the intervals of 
verse-making and the entertainment of 
his friends. 



Almost every travelled American has 
visited Strawberry Hill, where Horace 
Walpole had his famous Gothic Castle, 
from which he used to indite the biting 
epistles which became classics in Eng- 
lish ; and not far away lived Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, once Tope's fast 
friend, but later on his bitter enemy. 
Charles Dickens lived in Twickenham 
Park in 1838, and there Thackeray, 
Douglas Jerrold, Landseer, Stanfield, 
and Maclise, had. according to the testi- 
mony of John Foster. •• many friendly 
days " together. 

Further up stream lies Hampton Court 
and the village of Hampton, from which 
is a pleasant view of the long reaches of 
the Thames, with their lines of little 
islands or eyots, and the broad meadows 
on either hand, the elms of Bushey Park, 
the towers and prcttih -massed roofs of 
Kingston, and the wooded hills of Sur- 
rey. At Hampton proper is "Garrick 
Villa," which, in Garrick's time, and 
when he came frequently there, was 
known as Hampton House. There the 
noted actor built an ambitious Corin- 
thian portico, and had handsome 
grounds laid out. On the lawn lie 
erected a Grecian temple, in which he 
shrined a statue of Shakespeare, for 
which it is said lie stood as model, and 
so enraged the sculptor by his caprices 
during his sitting for the work, that the 
artist threatened to give up the commis- 
sion. There Garrick was fond of giving 
dinner and garden parties and festivals 
at night, when his grounds were lighted 
by colored lights. Thither came the 
Spanish minister of the time, the Duke 
of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, 
Lady Iloldei ness. and Horace Walpole. 
Old Johnson even penetrated to Hampton 
House, anil when Garrick asked him how 
lie liked it, said, "It is the leaving of such 
places that makes a death-bed terrible." 



550 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Hampton Court;, much visited by 
cockneys and tourists, is a kind of gen- 
teel asylum for the widows of distin- 
guished servants of the crown . In fact, 
both Hampton Court and Kew Palace arc 
occupied by aristocratic pensioners, who 
have rooms or suites of rooms assigned 
them at the hands of Her Majesty. Old 
Cardinal Wolsey, when he bought 
Hamilton Court, was at the height of 
his power ; and it is said that, expect- 
ing still greater honors, he meant to 
make there one of the finest palaces in 
Europe. The structures which he raised 
at Hampton were the cause of the envy 
which finally cost him his position, and 
led him to regret his high ambition. 
After a noble entertainment which Wol- 
sey gave at Hampton to the French am- 
bassador in 1527, King Henry himself 
felt envious, and asked Wolsey why he 
had built so costly a house. 

" To show how noble a palace a subject 
may offer to his sovereign," said the 
Cardinal, biting his lips, and handing 
over the splendid establishment to His 
Majesty, who accepted it with alacrity. 

It was at Hamilton Court that Henry 
had til*- first news of the death of Wol- 
sey. Thither Princess Elizabeth was 
summoned from Woodstock, and urged 
to abjure Protestantism ; and there the 
great council of the Lords was sum- 
moned by Elizabeth, in 1568, to consider 
the accusations against Mary Queen of 
Scots, respecting the murder of Darnley. 
There .lames I. and Charles I. succes- 
sively lived, and there Charles sought 
refuge with his Queen from the tumult 
in London, and there, in 1047, he was a 
prisoner. 

Hampton Court has echoed to the foot- 
steps of Oliver Cromwell, who was very 
fond of the palace, and came often to it ; 
and there one of his daughters was mar- 
ried, and his favorite daughter, Lady 



Claypole, died. History tells us that the 
great Protector had an organ taken away 
from Magdalen College, Oxford, and set 
up in the great gallery at Hampton Court. 
The first and second Georges liked the 
palace and lived there; but, after their 
time, the state apartments and grounds 
were much neglected. Few visitors came 
to see them ; but now hundreds of thou- 
sands come yearly to the palace and the 
park. The tapestries, of which there 
are many very beautiful ones, arc the 
chief curiosities. The pictures are nu- 
merous and poor. In what is called the 
" Presence Chamber," there are the cele- 
brated •• Hampton Court Beauties," a 
famous series of portraits of the ladies 
of the court of William and Mary, 
familiar in engraving to all the world. 

Put the especial jewel of the upper 
Thames region, and the one most sacred 
in the English eye, because it is the 
residence of the Queen, is Windsor, of 
which Dean Swift wrote to Stella., " that 
it was in a delicious situation, but that 
the town was scoundrel." Modern 
Windsor town has nothing of especial 
interest in it. Its streets look prosaic 
and uninviting enough ; but here and 
there is an ancient inn like the " Garter," 
which boasts in its records of the patron- 
age of old Pepvs and of Sir John Fal- 
staff. Not many years ago the houses 
of Mistress Page and of Master Ford 
were still pointed out ; but they have 
now been swept away, and but few 
memorials of the " Merry Wives of 
Windsor" remain. 

The "Castle" is noble and imposing. 
Chief of the royal palaces, which are 
few in number, it is also the chief bv 
the multitude of interesting associations 
grouped about it. It has been for seven 
hundred years a royal residence, the 
scene of beautiful pageants, of courtly 
assemblages, of many crimes and cele- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



551 



brated political events. Viewed from 
the park it springs with incomparable 
grace and majesty from the eminence 
overlooking the broad valley <>f the 
Thames, and the little town seems to 
nestle confidingly at its feet. Of course 
its origin is attributed to " William the 
Conqueror," as it is necessary that the 
sovereign's abode should be intimately 
connected with the beginning of the pres- 
ent aristocracy in England. It is said 
that the Conqueror got the manor by 
exchange from the Abbot of West- 
minster, and that he then made Windsor 
a royal residence. " But," says Tborne, 
" there is no evidence that bis works 
were more than additions to already ex- 
isting buildings." 

Under "William Rufus, Windsor Castle 
was both a prison and a palace, and 
there the Earl of Northumberland was 
long confined. Henry I. held his court 
at Windsor in 1106, and there sum- 
moned the nobles of England and those 
of Normandy. There Henry II. lived 
and lavished money on the vineyards 
which then flourished in the neighbor- 
hood. Erom Windsor Castle King John 
set out to meet the barons who made 



him sign the Great Charter ; and later on 
the barons besieged the Castle, but it 
held firm against them. Under Henry 
III. Windsor was the finest royal dwell- 
ing in Europe. There Edward I. and 
Edward II. held court and councils, gave 
audiences, had jousts and tournaments ; 
there Edward III., Edward of Windsor, 
as he was called by the older historians, 
lived long and happily ; and he it was 
who built the " Hound Tower," the most 
striking feature of the castle. Here he 
held his famous " Hound Table," which 
he had conceived the fancy of rees- 
tablishing in imitation of Arthur and his 
loyal knights; and here, in 1344, was 
inaugurated the newly founded "Order 
of the Carter." On this occasion knights 
from every part of Europe flocked up to 
Windsor, and the huntings and hawk- 
ings, the banquets and dances, and the 
tournaments lasted for many weeks. In 
the bright pages of old Froissart, the 
sprightly chronicler, there are many de- 
scriptions of the festivals at Windsor on 
St. George's Day, when the knights, 
with the king at their head, proceeded to 
the chapel where the rites of installa- 
tion were performed. 



552 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE. 



English Royalty. — The Court. — Memorials of Windsor. — St™ George's Chapel. — The Park at Windsor. 
— The Royal Palaces. — Drawing-Rooms at Buckingham Palace. — Memorials of Buckingham 
Palai e. — 



Ij ENGLAND is very far from having a 
J — A court in tin' sense that the word is 
understood in( J-ermanyor even in Austria. 
M. Philippe Daryl, in his (.■lever book 
on public life in England, tells us that 
no court proper is to be found in that 
country, and that if there be one at all 
it only exists on paper. " The alma- 
nach," he says, " gives us a pompous 
list of officials, a lord chamberlain, a 
vice-chamberlain, a lord steward, a mas- 
ter of the horse and a master of the 
hounds, a mistress of the robes, a dean 
of the Chapel Royal, physicians and 
surgeons in ordinary, controllers, treas- 
urers, equerries, gentlemen in waiting, 
the grooms of the chamber, a poet 
laureate, pages, women of the bed 
chamber, maids of honor, etc. Every- 
one of these draws a salary and partakes 
generally of the fortunes of the cabinet; 
but the duties are practically sinecures, 
and, except on rare occasions, neither 
regular service nor regular attendance is 
demanded. They recall in nothing the 
traditions of Louis XIV.'' Doubtless 
this is in some measure true ; yet there 
is none the less the strictest of court 
etiquettes kept up at Windsor, and it is 
accounted the highest honor which a 
distinguished civilian can receive to be 
asked to the Castle and presented to 
the reigning sovereign, and possibly be 
asked to stay to dinner. As for the 
military people of distinction, they all 
look forward to the time when they shall 
get from the august resident therein 



some pleasing message. The humblest 
railway or steamship servant wounded in 
an accident, the soldier stretched out on 
some tar off plain, or the general who 
has just, carried through some great 
enterprise in the interest of that trade 
which always follows just behind the 
army — all look to Windsor for their 
reward. In France, the different min- 
isters intervene between the chief of 
State and the recipient of favor or 
honors, but in England the messages 
often come so direct that they seem to 
bring the citizen into closest relation 
with that majesty for which he has such 
profound respect. Furthermore, al- 
though a court may not be kept up in 
the pompous and ornate fashion of 
Berlin at all times at Windsor, there is 
a court circle which cannot lie broken 
into, one which is always maintained 
above and outside the sphere of ordi- 
nary conventional society, and which 
has its expression in the levees or draw- 
ing-rooms in the parlors of Buckingham 
Palace or St. James. 

Queen Victoria has associated her 
name with Windsor almost as closely as 
that of any of her predecessors. Eliza- 
beth was delighted with Windsor Castle, 
and had a tine gallery ami banqueting 
house built there as well as many gar- 
dens laid out. all of which have long ago 
been swept from existence. She it was 
who built the north terrace, and in her 
new gallery in the latest years of the six- 
teenth century, Master William Shake- 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



553 



speare's sprightly comedy of "'The Merry 
Wives of Windsor" was played by Her 
Majesty's command, the poet himself 
directing the rehearsals and the first 
performance. A few years later Ben 



incuts, its images, and its costly fittings, 
and the soldiers of the Parliament hunted 
the deer in the royal park and forest. 
To Windsor the body of Charles I. was 
brought, shortly after his execution, and 




QUEEN VICTORIA. 
From Photograph l>y \. Bassano, "M Bond street, London. 



Jonson's "Music of the Gipsies" was was earned, on the 9th of February, 

presented at Windsor, having previously 1C49, from the great hall, where Charles 

been played before King James on two had so often held stately levees, t<> St. 

occasions. When the Parliamentary George's Chapel, where it was buried 

Generals came in they stripped St. without bell or book. 
George's Chapel of its plate, its vest- History tells us that Charles II. took 



554 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



the sum of £70,000 sterling, voted 
after the Restoration, for the removal 
of the body of Charles I. to a fitting 
sepulchre ; but that noble monarch 
never rendered any accouut of the 
money. Under George III. there was a 
veritable court at Windsor, and it used 
to assemble on Sunday afternoons on the 
terrace to listen to the music of the mili- 
tary bands, the King with the Queen, the 
children, and the royal suite promenad- 
ing up and down a lane composed of his 
loyal subjects, who bowed low as he 
passed them. 

Under tin' reign of the present Queen 
greal improvements have been made at 
Windsor. The Prince Consort was very 
fund of the old building, and suggested 
most of the changes, among which are 
the restoration of the lower ward, that of 
St. George's chapel, the Wolsey chapel, 
which is a kind of memorial of the Prince 
Consort himself, and many of the changes 
in the upper ward, theentrance hall, and 
the state staircase. Prince Albert's im- 
provements were very skilful, and have 
added immensely to the beauty of the line 
range of buildings, which stretches fifteen 
hundred feet from east to west along the 
high table-land, around which, on its 
western cud, the Thames makes a great 
sweep. 

St. George's chapel is often enough 
described in our days, as it is the scene 
of christenings, marriages, and funerals 
in the very numerous blanches of the 
royal family. It is a noble burial-place 
of kings, and in its vaults lie Henry VIII., 
.lane Seymour, Charles I., George III , 
George IV., William IV., Queens Char- 
lotte and Adelaide, and many lesser dig- 
nitaries. On the Albert Memorial chapel, 
or the Tomb House, as it was formerly 
called, the Queen has expended large 
sums in restoration or decoration, in 
memory of her husband ; and in the 



centre of the chapel stands the sarcoph- 
agus of the Prince, bearing a recum- 
bent, statue, habited in a suit of armor. 
The body of the good Prince does not 
repose here, but in the Royal Mausoleum, 
at Frogmore. 

That portion of Windsor in which the 
Queen resides is not very often open to 
the public, for the Queen spends the 
greater portion of her time at Windsor, 
visiting her castle in the Northern High- 
lands, and simple, but pretty Osborne 
House, on the shores of the Isle of 
Wight, only for comparatively brief 
periods. The private life of the Queen 
is described as simple in marked degree, 
made up of the same quiet and refined 
pleasures which lill the life of any lady 
of distinction, interspersed, however, 
by seasons of hard work ; for the Queen 
is not a queen in vain, and has papers 
manifold to sign, and in troublous times 
many complaints to hear and questions 
to ask. She has a special wire from the 
Houses of Parliament to Windsor, and 
when she is at the Castle knows all that 
is going on a very short time after it 
occurs. At any hour of the night <>r 
day she ma}' read from the slip of paper 
which lolls out from the machine the 
story of the debates, the accidents, and 
incidents which have occurred in the 
kingdom. All bills, orders in council, 
etc., are drawn up in her name, according 
to the pleasant formula which assumes 
that she governs as well as reigns. She 
has to attend to the post every day or 
two, with as much care as if she were 
the head of a commercial establish- 
ment. Foreign despatches, proclama- 
tions, ratifications, decrees, letters-patent, 
orders for execution, — all these great 
and small affairs require the " Victoria 
R." before they are legal. " In sum- 
mer," M. Daryl tells us, "she signs 
these papers, sealed in a pretty tent 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



555 



pitched on the lawn at Balmoral." We 
are told that she is very fond of letter- 
writing, and keeps up an enormous cor- 
respondence with her German relatives. 

The Audience chamber at Windsor is 
■decorated with Verrio's conventional 
■ceilings, but the walls are hung with the 
richest tapestry from the Gobelins, and 
illustrate the life of Esther. Here, too, 
are many portraits of members of the 
English royal family, and a noble picture 
■of Mary Queen of Scots. In the Yan- 
•dyck room are no less than twenty-two 
portraits by the celebrated painter ; and 
in the Queen's state drawing-room are 
pictures of the different Georges. The 
fondness of the English for recording 
the glory of their Continental campaigns 
is illustrated in the Waterloo chamber, 
which is a fine hall used for state ban- 
quets. Around this hall are ranged the 
pictures of the sovereigns, the generals, 
:uid the politicians who took part in the 
war that ended at Waterloo. 

The Presence chamber, or Court ball- 
room, hung with beautiful tapestries 
and ornamented with granite vases; 
St. George's hall, more than two hun- 
dred feet long, with its trophies of arms 
and armor, its shields and banners, em- 
blazoned with the arms of all the knights 
from the foundation of the celebrated 
order; the Guard chamber, filled with 
military and naval trophies ; and the 
■Queen's Presence chamber, — are the 
only rooms ordinarily shown to the 
public. But beyond them lie the real 
treasures: the Queen's and King's clos- 
es ; beautiful cabinets filled with pictures 
by Holbein, Claude Lorraine, Titian, 
Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Rubens ; and 
the Rubens room, the Council cham- 
ber, the Throne room, which contains 
some superb portraits by Gainsborough ; 
the great Corridor, five hundred and 
twenty feet long, lined with busts of 



noted personages ; the Plate room, which 
contains the nautilus cup of Benvenuto 
Cellini ; the Library, the Raphael cabi- 
net, — these are not exceeded in magnifi- 
cence and interest even by the superb 
ducal residences in England. Many of 
the dukes have palaces which compare 
very favorably, however, with the other 
royal abodes. 

Miles away to the south of the town 
stretches Windsor's great park, full of 
the noblest and wildest forest scenery, 
breezy slopes, over which herds of deer 
wander, great avenues with the boughs 
of trees interlocked above, cool glades 
through which little brooklets glide, and 
throughout the whole an atmosphere of 
refined age and calm. Here and there 
the ancient elms are decaying and have 
fallen ; but the forest keepers take ten- 
derest care of them. Many of the trees 
are inscribed with brass plates and bear 
especial names, like " the oak of Wil- 
liam the Conqueror," and "Queen Vic- 
toria's Tree." 

Of this park, and of Windsor as seen 
from it. M. Darvl, in his admirable 
book, says: "With its foliated pas- 
sages, its winding corridors, its grand 
round tower, its little window-panes 
sunk into lead, its irregular roofs and 
innumerable steps, this immense palace is 
assuredly not a mode] of simplicity or of 
architectural regularity. But what a 
grand appearance it haw upon the ter- 
race heights overlooking the Thames, 
when the setting sun is lighting up its 
windows, which rise high above the level 
of the forest trees ! How much this 
mass of feudal walls and modern build- 
ings resembles the British constitution, 
and how that fantastical decoration 
seems the natural surroundings of that 
sleeping beauty, the English monarchy. 
More than Westminster Abbey or St. 
Paul's — more than anvedifice — Windsor 



556 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



has :i calm majesty, which is quite in the 
fitness of things, and surpasses your ex- 
pectations. All is grand, sumptuous, 
and striking. The trees in the Long- 
walk, four or five centuries old, and 
dving of old age, as they border an 
avenue two leagues in length; the gold 
plate, worth forty million francs; the 
pictures, which any museum in the 
world would lie proud to possess ; the 
park, in which the deer are fed ; the 
guards in their grand uniforms, who 
keep watch at the posterns; and, 
above all, the machicolations, and 
the ramparts, two hundred feet above 
us, profile against the sky dominating 
the horizon of a dozen counties. If we 
met a live unicorn at the end of an 
alley we would hardly feel surprised. 
At Windsor the atmosphere almost 
seems Shakespearian, as at Versailles 
one seems lo he walking in a tragedy of 
.lean Racine." 

Our sprightly French friend alludes 
with certain fantastic cynicism to what 
he is pleased to term the Sleeping 
Beauty ; hut the monarchy in troublous 
times awakens from its feudal dream, 
and shows that it knows how to take 
part in the vicissitudes and troubles 
which come to the nation. As these 
pages are written the English world is 
disturbed by a deadly struggle with 
Arab fanaticism, by the resistance of a 
so-called Prophet, resistance heightened 
and strengthened by the conviction of 
the Arabs that their cause is just; and 
no sooner has the strain been felt in 
England than the head of the aristocracy 
rises to the level of an astonishing 
activity. The Queen, who has such 
marked dislike for public ceremonials, 
and who has so studiously refrained 
from participating in them since the loss 
of the Prince Consort, — whose life- 
long mourner she is determined to lie, — 



now appears as the giver of /<"■!< s as well 
as of military decorations. The musty 
halls of Buckingham Palace are aired 
and thrown open ; levees and drawing- 
rooms are announced; the court, of 
which M. Daryl denies the existence, 
comes out of its enchanted nap, and 
proceeds to dazzle the eyes of the 
groundlings; the heir-apparent is sent 
to the disaffected sister island, there to 
dispense hospitality and money, and to 
bear with g 1 grace the lack of recip- 
rocal courtesy. 

Besides her residence of Windsor the 
Queen has three royal metropolitan 
palaces: Buckingham Palace, properly 
the residence of the sovereign and the 
court; St. James's, used exclusively 
for state receptions and level's; and 
Kensington Palace, where Queen Vic- 
toria was born, and where she held her 
first Council. Buckingham Palace is far 
more impressive in exterior than in in- 
terior. It is pretty enough in the midst 
of its symmetrical shrubbery and in the 

neighborhood of the green slopes of St. 

James's park in summer, when the sea- 
son is at its height, and when the long 
procession of high-swung barouches 
bears to it the hundreds of ladies who 
are presented at court. These poor 
ladies undergo a ferocious inspection 
from the populace, which flocks up to the 
park to see the swells lis they wait in 
line their turn to descend within the 
palace grounds; and the assembled 
people pass many a rough comment upon 
the bare-shouldered dowagers and the 
shrinking maidens who brave the ele- 
ments and the eyes of the vulgar on their 
way to pass before the platform on 
which the Queen stands to receive her 
subjects. On Drawing-room days tin' 
Queen wears a mourning costume with 
diamonds, and the Order of the Garter, 
and about her are grouped the princesses 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



557 



and many of the dignitaries of the royal 
household. The ladies pass slowly be- 
fore the platform, their long trains, 
the feathers in their hair, — for flowers 
are forbidden at court, — giving them a 
most singular appearance. There is no 
buffet, and the fatigue of the long wait- 
ing and the crush in the Drawing-room 
are sometimes so prostrating that a lady 
who has been presented at court does not 
again appear in society during the season. 
The etiquette is of the greatest, rigidity. 
The moral character of every person 
who is presented for presentation is 
inspected microscopically, and no lady 
who has been caught in the meshes of a 
divorce suit, no matter how faultless she 
herself may be, can hope for the momen- 
tary glimpse of the majesty of the realm. 
Buckingham Palace doubtless stands on 
the old Marlborough garden, which was 
planted by .lames I. in the seventeenth 
century, and which, after his time, was a 
popular resort, where people of the best 
quality, according to old Evelyn, used 
to go to be "exceedingly cheated at." 
There Drvdcn was wont to go with his 
mistress, Sirs. Anne Reeve, to drink 
sweetened wine and eat cheese-cakes. 
Later on there was a Buckingham House, 
which the Duke of Buckingham built 
in 1703; and Defoe speaks of this as 
one of the great beauties of London. 
George III. lived at Buckingham House. 



and there many of his children were 
born. There Dr. Johnson used to go to 
consult books in the fine library, and 
there be had a famous conversation one 
day with George III. 

When the Palace was reconstructed, 
in the second quarter of the present 
century, the celebrated Marble Arch, 
which has long stood on the north-east 
corner of Hyde Park, was one of the 
ornaments of the Palace. It was re- 
moved in 1851. The marble hall and 
sculpture gallery ; the grand drawing- 
room, where, on the occasion of state 
balls, the famous tent of Tippoo Sahib is 
erected ; the Throne room, beautifully 
hung with crimson satin, with the royal 
throne or chair of state, in which Her 
Majesty is seated when she receives ad- 
dresses ; the picture-gallery of moderate 
merit, and several other gaudy drawing- 
rooms, — are the principal features of the 
Palace. During the present reign a few 
Costume Balls, as they are called, have 
been held in these halls ; lint since the 
death of the Prince Consort the only 
festivals have been the drawing-rooms 
for presentation, and at all of these at 
which gentlemen are presented the Prince 
of Wales represents the Queen. The 
royal stables are close by ; and the 
Palace can hardly be a healthy resi- 
dence, since under it rims one of the 
greatest of the London sewers. 



f>58 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO. 



St. James's Palace. — The Story (if Kensington. — Its Gardens. — The Charges which Royalty Entails. — 
The Prince of Wales. — An Industrious Heir Apparent. — Marlborough House. — The Title of 
Prince of Wales. — Habitual Views of Allowances to Royal Personages. — Sandringham. 



QT, James's Palace, on the north side 
O of the Park, is an ugly old pile of 
blackened brick, oner a hospital for lep- 
rous females. But it is historically most 
interesting, and when it stood in the 
midst of green fields, and before it was 
dwarfed by the immediate vicinity of 
the lofty Marlborough House, it was, 
perhaps, impressive. Henry VIII. first 
made a royal palace of St. James's: 
Edward and Elizabeth occasionally re- 
sided there: Mary made it the place of 
her retirement during the absence of her 
royal spouse, Philip of Spain ; and 
there she died. From the Chapel Royal, 
which is one of the fashionable places of 
worship in London, Charles I. set forth 
from the Park guarded with a regiment 
of foot and partisans to Whitehall, on the 
morning that he lost his head. There 
Monk planned the Restoration: there 
the Dukes of York and Gloster were im- 
prisoned in the civil wars: and at the 
close of the seventeenth century, the 
Court at St. James's was very bril- 
liant. This phrase, the ••Court of St. 
James's," so constantly used in diplo- 
matic jargon, came into use shortly after 
the burning of Whitehall, in 1697, when 
the St. James's Palace was first used 
for important state ceremonials. George 
I V. was horn in this palace, and, in 1814, 
the Emperor of Russia and the King of 
Prussia with old Dluehcr were installed 
therein dining their visit to London. 
The old ceremonials of the honors of the 
Guard Chamber arc still enacted hv the 



Yeomen of the Queen's Guard on Levee 
and Drawing-Rooms days, in honor of 
distinguished visitors. 

Not far away is Clarence House, where 
the Duke of Clarence, who afterwards 
became King William IV., for sometime 
resided. This mansion is now the Lon- 
don residence of one of the Princes 
Royal. 

Kensington Palace, which is ill the 
parish of St. Mark's in Westminster, is a 
handsome edifice of brick with stone 
foundations, and stands upon the site 
of the mansion which was destroyed by 
tire in 1G91. In the new palace Queen 
Mary and King William. Queen Anne 
ami the Prince Consort, and George II. 
died. George III. rarely visited Ken- 
sington : but (he Duke of Kent was vers 
fond of residing in the lower south- 
eastern apartments, underneath the so- 
culled King's Gallery : and there Queen 
Victoria was christened on the 24th 
June. 1819. The story of her reception 
of the intelligence of the death of 
William IV. has been often told, but 
may be once more recited here. The 
noted painter, Sir David Wilkie, has 
left a representation of the scene, but 
with a painter's license hi' departed 
somewhat from the truth. In the diaries 
of a lady of quality, under the date of 

June. fS.'w,is the following entry : "On 
the 20th at two a. in. the scene closed 
(this is an allusion to the death of King 
William), and in a very short time the 
Archbishop of Canterbury anil Lord 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



559 



Conyngham, the chamberlain set out to 
announce the event to their new sover- 
eign. They reached Kensington Palace 
at about five. They knocked, they rang, 
they thumped for a considerable time, 
before they could arouse the porter at 
the gates. They were again kept wait- 
ing in the court-yard, then turned into 
one of the lower rooms, where they 
seemed forgotten by everybody. They 
rang the bell, desired that the attendant 
of the Princess Victoria might be sent 
to inform her Royal Highness that they 
requested an audience on business of 
importance. After another delay, and 
another ringing to inquire the cause, the 
attendant was summoned, and stated 
that the Princess was in such a sweet 
sleep that she could not venture to dis- 
turb her. Then they said, 'We are 
come to the Queen, on business of state. 
and even her sleep must give way to 
that.' It did ; and, to prove that she did 
not keep them waiting, in a few minutes 
she came into the room in a loose white 
night-gown and shawl, her night-cap 
thrown off, and her hair falling upon her 
shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in 
her eyes, but perfectly collected and 
dignified. The first act of the Queen 
was of course to summon the Council, 
and most of the summonses were not 
received until after the early hour fixed 
for its meeting. The Queen was, upon 
the opening of the doors, found sitting at 
the head of the table. She received 
first the homage of the Duke of Cumber- 
land, who I suppose was not King of 
Hanover when he knelt to her. The 
Duke of Sussex rose to perform the 
same ceremony, but the Queen stood up 
and prevented him from kneeling, kiss- 
ing him on the forehead. The crowd 
was so great, the arrangements were so 
ill-made, that my brothers tell me the 
scene of swearing allegiance to their 



young sovereign was more like that of 
the bidding at an auction than anything 
else." 

Not far away are the delightful Ken- 
sington Gardens, several hundred acres 
in area, and there, when King William 
lived in the Palace, the great gardens, 
which Queen Caroline had caused to be 
laid out, were opened to the public on 
Saturdays; and all visitors were required 
to appear in full dress. It was Queen 
Caroline who formed the serpentine, 
which divided the Palace grounds from 
the open Hyde Park ; and near the 
bridge over this serpentine there are 
many tine walks beneath fine old Spanish 
chestnut-trees. 

The nation is proud and pleased to 
pay all the charges which royalty entails 
upon it; and these charges are various 
and numerous enough to bear recapitula- 
tion here. Theoretically the Queen's in- 
come is free from all taxes and charges ; 
but we learn that Sir Robert Peel, when 
lie was prime minister, in 1842, an- 
nounced that the Queen had declared her 
determination to submit to the income 
tax. This statement was received with 
enthusiasm ; but the Queen is supposed 
from that day to this never to have paid 
any income tax. Among the so-called 
Civil List charges on the Consolidated 
Fund are £60,000 for Her Majesty's 
privy purse ; £131 ,260 for Her Majesty's 
household, including annual salaries and 
retired allowances; £172,500, expenses 
of Her Majesty's household; £13,200, 
royal bounty, alms, and special services ; 
pensions granted by Her Majesty. £23,- 
714 ; unappropriated items. £8,0 10 ; reve- 
nues of the Duchy of Lancaster drawn 
by Her Majesty, about £44,000 annually : 
expenditure on the royal palaces, several 
thousand pounds; on the great park. 
£25,000 annually, — in short, on all the 
immediate personal expenses and those 



560 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

connected with the royal residences, thousand acres, and her rental from 

nearly £500,000. The royal yachts and Aberdeen, Hants, and [Surrey is about 

the naval charges amount to £34,656 ; £5,500. The grand estate of Windsor 

and this is the annual average cost of is more than ten thousand acres, and is 

the four royal yachts for ten years, valued at £22,000 odd per annum. The 

Escorts and salutes, and the pay of Queen bought Claremont for £74,000, in 

naval and marine aides-de-camp cost 1882. This noble property cost Lord 

about £5,000 more; the military aide- Give nearly £150,000, and covers four 

de-camp, the household troops, pensions hundred and sixty-four acres. Besides 

in connection with the Orders of the her English possessions the Queen has 

Bath and of St. Patrick, allowances to property at Coburg and at Baden, in 

marshal of ceremonies and trumpeters, Germany. 

and other small items which come under Other payments by the nation to the 
the head of royal escort, cost £70,000 royal family may he briefly reviewed 
annually. Many items formerly defrayed as follows: II. 11.11. the Princess Royal, 
by the revenues of the crown, such as present Crown Princess of Prussia, the 
grants to the Church of Scotland, royal able, amiable, and interesting wife of 
functionaries in Scotland, hereditary Prince Frederick William, heir to the 
usher, the hereditary keeeper, master of German throne, received yearly, after 
the audience court, the officers of the 1858, £8,000 ; and there is an odd little 
Order of the Thistle, the six trumpeters, item of £40 for a special steamer to con- 
Iler Majesty's historiographer, clock- vey the Crown Prince to and fro when- 
maker, the warden at regalia, Her Ma-jes- ever he visits England attached to the 
tv's charities ami bounties, the Ulster estimates on behalf of this princess 
king-at-arms, the pensions paid to Eng- royal. When she was married, the nation 
lish clergy, the pensions paid to French gave her a money grant of £10,1100. 
refugee clergy, bounties to the clergy and The Prince of Wales has received 
school-masters of the Isle of Man, and annually since 1863 £40,000, as a 
many other items, are now assumed by charge on the Consolidated Fund, be- 
the nation, and count in the sovereign's sides which he enjoys the revenues of 
Civil List, the total payments on account the Duchy of Cornwall, which have 
of which arc about £619,000 annually, averaged £65,000 annually for the last 
During the life of the Prince Consort ten years. This Duchy of Cornwall is 
£30,000 per annum was payable to him, a little treasury in itself. The lands of 
and the total sum drawn under the act the duchy are about seventy-four thon- 
giving him a yearly sum had been sand acres in area, and the coal, tin, 
£630,000. In 1852 a generous gentle- ami lead mines yield enormously. The 
man bequeathed £250,000 sterling to invested and cash balances of the duchy 
Her Majesty for her personal use. amount to £130,000. For annual re- 
It is but proper that the Queen pairs of Marlborough House the Prince 

should be a great land-owner, as she has about £2,000. The Princess of 

is the head of a landed aristocracy, Wales has a separate annual charge on 

and her private estates, while they do the Consolidated Fund of £10,000 ; and 

not rank in size with the great ducal whenever the Prince makes a journey in 

possessions, art' very considerable. In the interest of the nation, as when he 

Aberdeen shi' has more than twenty-live went to St. Petersburg to invest the 



EUROTF. LV STORM AND CALM. 



561 



Czar with the Orderof theGarter,his trav- exchange of despatches. The Prince is 
elling expenses are from £2,000to£3,000. but a small land-owuer, for lie has lint 
Shortly before he reached his 
majority the Prince of Wales 
received the accumulated rev- 
enues of the Duchy of Corn- 
wall, amounting to more than 
£600,000. Of this sum one- 
third was invested in the pur- 
chase of Sandringham, and a 
part of the remainder was 
spent in building the pretty 
mansion there, and in fitting 
out the Prince and his house- 
hold for his active campaign 
of social duty. The Prince of 
Wales is the first gentleman, 
as Ihe Premier or Prime Min- 
ister is the first man, in Eng- 
land. Tlie position of heir- 
apparent to the throne is by 
no means a bed of roses. 
It is as trying and requires 
as energetic conduct as that 
of a great politician ; and in 
troublous times the conduct 
of the present Prince, as well 
as his energy and courage, 
have done much to prevent 
crises. When the Queen is 
puzzled and annoyed at Mr. 
Gladstone's course it is the 
Prince of Wales who pops 
into the Premier's office and 
makes him a friendly call. 
When there is a chance for a 
favorable alliance on the con- 
tinent, it is the Prince of 
Wales who appears in Paris 
or Pome, Berlin or Vienna, 
leaving always an excellent 
impression behind him, and 

often accomplishing in a few moments' a rental of £10,000 from fourteen thon- 
eonversation what the diplomats have sand eight hundred acres in Norfolk and 
been bringing up to the verge of accom- Aberdeenshire. Should the Princess of 
plishment during long months of weary Wales survive her husband she would 




PRINCE OF WALES. 
From Photograph tiy A. Hassano, Old P.oml street, London. 



5(52 



EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 



receive from the nation £30,000 per 
annum, or £10,000 less than she now 
receives in addition to lier own portion. 
When the Prince went to India, in 1ST."), 
out of the £142,000 expended during the 
journey. £60,000 was allowed as pocket- 
money and to be given as gratuities. It 
is not astonishing that all who partici- 
pated in thai memorable excursion never 
wa^v to sing the praises of the Prince 
of Wales. 

The entrance to Marlborough House, 
which is the town residence of the Prince 
and Princess of Wales, looks like the 
entrance of a great club, and the 
stranger might lie pardoned for mistak- 
ing it for a club-house, as it stands in 
the region of the costly palaces which 
the great number of club associations 
have adopted as peculiar to their own. 
This house, which lias been much im- 
proved in later years, was built for the 
great Duke of Marlborough, in 1710, 
was at one time the residence of Queen 
Adelaide, widow of William IV., and 
later on. was a kind of museum, until the 
department of science and art was re- 
moved to South Kensington, when Marl- 
borough House was prepared for a princely 
residence. There all the Prince's chil- 
dred, except the eldest, were born, and 
there the heir-apparent lives a cosy and 
honest English life, receiving cordially 
great numbers of friends without much 
of that strictness and etiquette which 
prevails in his goodly mother's palace of 
Windsor. The sentries, majestic in 
their bearskin caps, who walk up and 
down before Marlborough House and the 
entrance to St. James's Park, are the 
only indications that royalty graces the 
neighborhood. 

It is generally supposed in America 
aud on the continent that the title of 
Prince of Wales is hereditary for the 
eldest son of the reigning English sover- 



eign, that, he has a right to assume it 
as soon as he is born. I>ut the fact is 
that every heir-apparent to the English 
throne is Prince of Wales only by an 
act of special creation in his own par- 
ticular case. Sometimes this act is de- 
layed for many years, and sometimes 
it is not enforced at all. Edward II. 
was the first Prince of Wales, the story, 
which has been told recently in the 
British press on the occasion of the 
majority of the eldest son of the present 
Prince, being that, " to reconcile the 
Welsh people to their subjugation, and 
to the recognition of the sovereignty 
instead of the mere suzerainty of the 
English, King Edward I. promised them 
a prince born in their own country, and 
unable to speak a word of English." 

The legend tells us that tin' shrewd 
Edward kept his promise by presenting 
to the Welsh people his son Edward, who 
had just been born at Carnarvon, and 
who certainly could not speak English, 
and who would have found it just as 
difficult to speak Welsh. Edward II. 
was not created Prince of Wales until he 
was seventeen ; Edward III. was never 
made Prince of Wales, but was called 
the Earl of Chester; the Black Prince 
Edward was called Prince of Wales when 
he was thirteen, and from his time date 
the three ostrich feathers aud the motto 
" Ich Dien" (I serve), the princely de- 
vice, which tin' present heir-apparent 
thoroughly fulfils. Some of the princes 
of Wales, notably he who became 
George IV., certainly served no one but 
themselves. The famous Madcap Prince, 
of whom Shakespeare has given us such 
pleasant pictures, was a Prince of 
Wales ; and after him there is a long 
line of princes good, and princes bad. 
George I.'s son did not become Prince 
of Wales until he was thirty-two. 
Amoug the bad princes may be set 



EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 



563 



down Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
whose reputation is summed up in the 
biting epitapli written shortly after his 
death: — 



This Fred, however, left a son to be 
Prince of Wales, and afterwards to be 
George III., of whom America heard 
much. 




PRINCESS OF WALES AND FAMILY. 
From Photograph by W. <fc I). Downing, F.bury street, London. 



" Here lies Fred, who was alive and now is dead. 
Had it been his father, I had much rather, 
Had it been his brother, sooner than any other, 
Had it been his sister, there is no one who 

would have missed her, 
Had it been his whole generation, best of all 

for the nation ; 
But since it's only Fred, there is no more to be 

said." 



In an interesting article published in 
the " Daily News " last year, occurs the 
following statement concerning the finan- 
cial arrangements for the Prince of 
Wales : " Until the accession of the 
Queen, the annuity of the Prince of 
Wales had depended solely on the then 



564 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



reigning sovereign, and was granted by 
him out of the Civil List. George I. 
gave out of a Civil List of £700,000 a 
year an annuity of £100,000 to the 
Prince of Wales, the revenue of the 
Duchy of Cornwall being- about £10,000 
a year. After he became king he did 




DEPARTURE OF THE PRINCE <>K WALES FOR INDIA 



not emulate his father's generosity. 
George II. was the Harpagon <>t' kings. 
lie must have been the original of the 
king in the nursery rhyme, who was al- 
ways in his counting-house, counting of 
his money, for that was one of his 
favorite occupations. Horace Walpole 
mentions that one of his bedchamber 
women, with whom he was in love, 
seeing him count his money very often, 



said to him: "Sir, I can bear it no 
longer. If you count your money once 
more I will leave the room." The 
contrast between the miserly father and 
the spendthrift sou is quite in the vein 
of the old comedy. It belongs to the 
olilest comedy, that of human nature. 
" George II., out of 
his Civil List of £800,- 
000, allowed to Fred- 
erick, Prince of Wales, 
a ' poor, dissolute, flabby 
fellow - creature,' says 
Carlyle, an annuity of 
£60,000, which, with 
his hereditary revenue 
as Duke of Cornwall, 
gavehim£60,000ayear. 
The alleged inadequacy 
of this allowance was, 
at the instigation of 
Bolingbroke, brough t 

before the House of 

Commons by Pulteney, 
whom the King struck 
off the list of the Privy 
Council for his pains. 
Through the intrigues 

of the Court at Leicester 
House, a motion for its 
increase was nearly being 
carried. The annuity 
which ( ieorge III. him- 
self granted to his Prince 
of Wales, afterwards 
George IV., was £50,- 
ooo. the annual revenue of the Duchy of 
Cornwall amounting to about £12,000. 
George, Prince of Wales, bore consid- 
erable resemblance, in character, to his 
grandfather, Frederick. Prince of Wales. 
He imitated him in political intrigue, 
and endeavored, through his friends in 
the House of Commons, to obtain an 
increase in the annual allowance made to 
him. After some unsuccessful attempts. 



EUROPE I.Y STORM AXD CALM. 



505 



the King, not desiring to run the risk 
which his grandfather had incurred on 
Mr. Pulteney's nearly successful motion, 
made a proposal by Mr. Alderman Not- 
tage, in the House of Commons, in 17K7, 
for granting an additional £10.000 a 
year out of the Civil List. In 1 795 an 
additional annuity of £65,000 was set- 
tled upon the Prince, and in 180:? a fur- 
ther addition of £10,000 a year was 
made. This increase was, however, 
practically mortgaged for the payment 
of the Prince's debts, put down at 
£650,000, and did not swell the income 
available for his personal expenses." 

It is said, that, as the numerous grand- 
children of the Queen marry, the sums 
which have been voted by Parliament to 
the members of the royal family will be 
enormously increased. The Princess 
Beatrice, the last of the children, will, 
doubtless, have as generous a propor- 
tional allowance as has been made in the 
case of her brothers and sisters. " But," 
says a recent writer, " when the time 
comes for dealing with the third genera- 
tion of the royal house, it may be neces- 
sary to reconsider what is expedient and 
practical." The grandchildren of George 
III., to whom annuities have been voted. 
are only three, — the Duke of Cambridge 
and his two sisters. The English-born 
grandchildren of her present Majesty 
are no fewer than eighteen,- — very likely 
to be more. It is well, perhaps, that 
the prospects to be made in respect to 
provision for them should be established 
in a new House of Commons, more 
fairly representing the general owners of 



the country than any of its predecessors. 
Mr. Bright once described the public 
service of the country as a gigantic sys- 
tem of out-door relief for the aristocracy, 
The statement is much less true now 
than when Mr. Bright made it. The 
younger members of the aristocracy, 
the Lord Walters and Lionels, and the 
Hon. Alans and Johns, are (locking into 
commerce, professions, and adventures, 
are filling a state and clearing the back- 
woods. The time may come when the 
remoter scions of the Royal House may 
find the need and the happiness of taking 
a similar course. 

The heir-apparent of the heir-appar- 
ent, Prince Albert Victor Charles Arthur 
Edward, known to his family and at his 
university as Prince Edward, has re- 
cently attained his majority, a Iter having 
been to sea, as becomes an English 
Prince, and seen a good bit of the world. 
At Trinity College, Cambridge, which 
Macaulay called the noblest place of 
education in the world, he has been read- 
ing many hours daily, and his first public 
acts, such as the exchange of notes with 
the venerable Gladstone, and numerous 
representatives and politicians, indicate 
much strength of character. Sandring- 
ham, where the festivities on his coming 
of age took place, lies in a pretty coun- 
try near the sea, among hills and rich 
marsh meadows, dotted with cattle and 
wild and picturesque stretches of heath, 
broken by plantations. The house is 
surrounded by a handsome park dotted 
with lakes. 



5(5(5 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) CAEM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE. 



Fortunes and Incomes of Members of the English Royal Family. — Ancient and Hereditary Pensions. — 
The Invisible Court. — Its Functionaries. — Presidency. — The Aristocratic Element in the House 
of < lommons. 



rT"MIK charges upon the " Consolidated 
-L Fund." caused by the maintenance 
of the Royal Family, do not cease with 
the handsome payments to the Queen 
and to her eldest sou. His Royal Highness 
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, has received 
annually, since attaining his majority, in 
1865, £15,000, and after his marriage in 
1874, £10,000. His pay and allowance 
as Rear Admiral and superintendent of 
naval reserves, amount to nearly £1,500 
per annum. He has the free use of 
Clarence House, on which Parliamenl 
spent, a vast sum in altering it and 
fitting it Cor his use. He is shortly to 
inherit the great estates and wealth of 
the reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg and 
an income of fully £30,000 yearly. His 
wife brought him a pretty fortune of 
£90,000, besides a marriage portion of 
£300,000 and a life annuity of more 
than £11, (Kl(). In case she outlives the 
Duke, she is to have £0,000 in Consols. 
The immense accumulation thus enu- 
merated was the basis of the strenuous 
opposition of Sir Charles Dilke and 
others, in 1874, to a new grant to the 
Prince, who had married the richest 
heiress in Europe, lint only eighteen 
people ventured to vote against the 
Crown. Her Royal Highness Eleanor, 
Princess Christian, is allowed £6,000 
annually, and on the occasion of her 
marriage was given £30,000. She litis 
Cumberland Lodge. Windsor Park, as a 
royal residence. The Prince Christian, 
who is the Park Ranger, gets from the 



Queen £500 a year, besides many per- 
quisites. The gracious and charming 
Marchioness of Lome, her Royal High- 
ness Princess Louise, also receives 
£6,000 from the nation, and had out of 
the annual appropriations £30,000 when 
she was married. She lives in Ken- 
sington Palace, rent free. The late 
Princess Alice of Hesse also had an 
annual grant of £6,000 in Consols, a 
dowry of £30,000, and during her life- 
time received from the nation £126,000. 
His Royal Highness Arthur, Duke of 
Connaught, up to his majority in 1871, 
had received £6,000 per annum, and 
since his majority has had £10,000 an- 
nually. He draws £4,000 every year as 
military pay, and his wife brought him a 
dowry of £15,000. Mr. Gladstone, who 
supported the annuity hill in Parliament 
for this Prince, was excluded from the 
list of invitations when the Duke was 
married. The Duke of Connaught has 
a suit of rooms in Buckingham Palace, 
and a fine mansion at Bagshot Park, 
built for him and administered by the 
Woods and Forests Department. From 
1874 to l.s.si'. his late Royal Highness, 
the Prince Leopold. Duke of Albany, 

received annually £15,000; £10,000 a 

year when he wtis married, in 1882, and 
tit the time of his marriage was given 
£1 lo,iioo by the English people. Her 
Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cam- 
bridge, has received £6,000 annually 
since her widowhood in 1850. Her 
Royal Highness Augusta, Princess aud 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



567 



Duchess of Mecklinburg-Strelitz, has had 

£3,000 yearly since 1843, when she was 
married ; and whenever she journeys 
abroad, it is in a special steamer, for 
which £80 is allotted. His Royal High- 
ness George, Duke of Cambridge, has 
£12,000, besides game-rights, residences, 
and pasturages, amounting to £3,000 
more per year. As Field Marshal com- 
manding-in-chief, he has £4,500 per 
year, and as Colonel of the Grenadier 
Guards, a little more than £2,000 per 
year. Thus the head of the army receives 
about£33,000 every year, as commander- 
in-chief, and nearly £70,000 as a. gift 
from the nation. Audacious attempts 
have been made in Parliament to reduce 
these payments. Joseph Hume, John 
lhight. and others have attempted to 
lower them to £S,0()0 or £12,000, but in 
vain. In London, the Duke of Cam- 
bridge resides inGloster House, inPicca- 
dilly, which has been given him by the 
Queen as his town residence. 

Mary, Princess of Teck, has £5,000 
annually. His Serene Highness the 
Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar has 
about £3,500, and various nephews have 
half-pay or retired pay, as vice-admirals 
or as governors of castles or park-keepers. 
In addition to these there is a long list 
of pensions to servants of deceased 
sovereigns ; and the grand total of money 
paid out by Great Britain, in twelve 
months, in connection with the royal 
family, is about £870,000, to which 
should be added the cost of keeping up 
the royal public parks and pleasure-gar- 
dens, — Battgrsea, Betlmal Green, Bushy 
Park, Chelsea Military Asylum, Edin- 
burgh Royal Botanic Gardens, Green- 
wich, Hampton Court, Kew, Holyr I. 

Kensington, Regent's Park, and Prim- 
rose Hill, Richmond Parle, St. James's 
Park, Victoria Park, etc., ml infinitum. 
But the nation gives this money very 



willingly, because it really considers it as 
spent upon its own pleasures, and it pre- 
fixes each park with the word "royal," 
to confer upon it an additional dignity. 
The nation sums up and embodies its 
own majesty in the royal family, and it 
considers that it gives proof of its own 
magnificence in treating these hereditary 
representatives magnificently. 

At all times, until recent years, the 
sovereigns of England have felt free to 
bestow pensions with reckless generosity, 
and Great Britain has an enormous list 
of ancient and hereditary pensioners. 
The present Queen has in forty-six years 
expended nearly £7.">0,000 in Civil List 
pensions. The unredeemed ancient pen- 
sions, the grants made by Parliament in 
perpetuity, and pensions granted since 
the passage of the Restraint Acts, and 
made payable for more than one life, 
give an enormous total. But England is 
not the only country which is encumbered 
with pensioners. It is to be noted, how- 
ever, that, year by year, a large part of 
the increase in expenditure on pensions 
ami gratuities comes from the army esti- 
mates, and is due to the constant small 
and large wars in which England is 
engaged. The Financial Reform Al- 
manac calls attention to the fact that, in 
that black year of trade, 1884, John 
Bull has had to pay a corps of 140,000 
pensioners, military, naval, and civil, for 
doing nothing, and that their drawing, 
amounting to £7,500,000 sterling, swal- 
lowed up the whole of the income tax 
laid on the national profits during twelve 
months. 

A brief review of Her Majesty's 
household anil the expenses attendant 
upon it may not lie considered uninter- 
esting by republican readers. In the 
Lord Steward's department, the Lord 
Steward, Rt. Hon. Earl Sydney, receives 
£2,000 a year; the Treasurer of the 



568 



ECROI'K IN STORM A.XD CALM. 



Household and the Controller, £1,000 
each; Masterof the Household, £1,158; 
Secretary to the Board, £500; Keeper 
of tin- Privy Purse and Private Secretary 
to Her Majesty, Hon. Sir 11. F. Ponson- 
by, whose name is so often seen affixed 
to telegrams sent from Her Majesty, 
£2,000; an Assistant Keeper, £5,000; 
another Assistant, £500; Secretary of 
the Privy Purse, £3,000; and Clerks, 
trivial salaries. In the Lord Chamber- 
lain's department, the Lord Chamber- 
lain, the Earl of Kinmare, has £2,000 
per year ; the Vice-Chamberlain, nearly 
£1,000; the Controller of Accounts, the 
same ; the Chief Clerk, £700 ; Paymaster 
of the Household, £500; Masterof the 
Ceremonies. £3,000; the Lords-in-Wait- 
ing, cadi £702 ; the extra, Lord-in- Wait- 
ing gets no salary ; Grooms-in-Waiting, 
eaeh £334, but extra Grooms-in-Waiting 
are without pay ; the Gentlemen Ushers 
of the Privy Chamber, eaeh £200; the 
Gentleman Usher of the Black Hod. 
£2,01)0; Gentlemen Ushers, daily wait- 
ers, considered a. very honorable ap- 
pointment, each £'.'00; Grooms of the 
Privy Chamber, each £120; Gentlemen 
Ushers, quarterly waiters, each £80; 
Sergeants-at-Arms, each £80 ; the Poet 
Laureate, Lord Tennyson, £100; the 
Examiner of Plays, £500 ; the Librarian 
at "Windsor. £500. In addition to these 
there are attached to this intangible 
court, for which the French writer. M. 
Daryl, seems to have sought in vain, a 
Painter in Ordinary, a modern Painter 
and Sculptor, a Surveyor of Pictures, 
a German Librarian, a Governor Con- 
stable of Windsor Castle, Her Maj- 
esty's Body Guard of Yeomen of the 
( ruard, with a captain, at £'l ,200 a year ; 
an honorable guard of Gentlemen-at- 
Anns. with a captain, at £1,200, with a 
standard-bearer, with a clerk of the 
cheque, an adjutant, and a sub-officer. 



There is also a Master of the Horse, 
the well-known Duke of Westminster, 
at £2,500 ; a. Masterof the Buck Hounds, 
at £1,500; a Clerk of the Marshal, at 
£1,000; an hereditary Grand Falconer, 
if you please, at £1,200; a Crown 
Equerry and Secretary to the Master of 
the Horse, at £8,000; several Equerries 
in Ordinary, at. £600 and £500; extra 
Honorary Equerries, pages of honor. 
In the department of the Mistress of the 
Robes there is first the mistress, the 
Duchess of Roxburghe, who receives 
£500 a year, Ladies of the Bed-chamber, 
extra Ladies of the Bed-chamber, Bed- 
chamber Women, extra Bed-chamber 
Women, a Lady attendant upon 
Princess Beatrice, the Maids of 
Honor, each of these last receiving 

£300 a year; the Gr i of the Robes, 

and a Clerk of the Robes. There are, 
furthermore, the Dean of the Chapels 
Royal, who is no less a personage than 
the Bishop of London ; a. Sub-Dean, a 
Clerk of the Closet, Deputy Clerks of the 
Closet, a Domestic Chaplain, a Domes- 
tic Chaplain of the Household, an heredi- 
tary Grand Almoner, a. High Almoner, 
a Sub-almoner, a Secretary and a Yeo- 
man. There are also numerous phy- 
sicians in ordinary, extraordinary, 
surgeons in ordinary, sure-eons extraor- 
dinary, physicians of the household, 
surgeons of the household, surgeon 
apothecaries, surgeon at Osborne, sur- 
geon oculists, surgeon dentists, dentists 
of the household, and chemists and 
druggists, all attached to the Royal 
House. 

The arrangement of the Prince of 
Wales's household is, on the whole, ex- 
tremely simple, and there arc no salaries 
attaching to any of the appointments: 
the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Lords of 
the Bed-chamber, the Controller and 
Treasurer, the Grooms of the Bed-chain- 



EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 



5G9 



ber, the Equerries, the extra Equerries, 
the Private Secretary, the Librarian and 
German Secretary, the Clerks, the Gover- 
nors for the Prince, the Physicians, Sur- 
geons, etc., and they are few as compared 
with the great array of the Queen's attend- 
ants. The household of the Princess of 
Wales is composed of the Chamberlain, 
the Ladies of the Bed-chamber, who are 
always ladies of high distinction ; Bed- 
chamber Women, extra Bed-chamber 
Women, and a Private Secretary. All 
this enormous expenditure and weight of 
salaries, paid for services which are, to 
sav the least, in a great majority of cases 
entirely unnecessary and rarely per- 
formed, is placed upon the broad backs 
of the English middle classes, and is 
borne Almost with ease. 

The vast superstructure of royalty and 
aristocracy is apparent to the strange]- no- 
where so palpably as at a public banquet, 
where, after the toasts are begun, he ob- 
serves that it takes almost as long as is 
allotted to ordinary speeches in dinners in 
many other countries to get down to the 
subject-matter of the evening. There 
are, first, what are called the loyal toasts, 
which are never omitted, and which, at 
dinners of importance, almost invariably 
comprise the army and navy, the church 
and the law, if the law is present. The 
reason for this is easily found in the 
table of precedency, which is as familiar 
and as much a matter of course to Eng- 
glish men and women as it is odd and 
singular to many foreigners. The table 
naturally begins with the sovereign, and 
descends in the following order: the 
Prince of Wales, the Queen's younger 
Sous, the Grandsons of the sovereign, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 
High Chancellor, the Archbishop of York, 
the Archbishop of Armagh, the Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, the Lord President of 
the Privy Council, the Lord of the Privy 



Seal, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the 
Earl Marshal, the Lord Steward of Her 
Majesty's Household, the Lord Chamber- 
lain ; then come the Dukes, according to 
their pateuts of creation, of England, 
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and those 
created since the Union ; in the same 
order as dukes, dukes' eldest sons, earls, 
according to their patents, marquises' 
eldest sous, dukes' younger sons, vis- 
counts, according to their patents, earls' 
eldest sons, marquises' younger sons ; the 
bishops of Loudon, Durham, and Win- 
chester ; all other English bishops, ac- 
cording to seuiority of creation ; bishops 
of the Irish Church created before 1869 ; 
Secretaries of State, if they be barons; 
barons, according to their patents. We 
have now come dowu through a long list 
to a very important parliamentary func- 
tionary, who is heard quite as much of 
in the course of a year as the Queen or 
the Prince of Wales, but who, as will 
readily be seen, is a long way from the 
throne, — this is the Speaker of the 
House of Commons. Below him is the 
Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household, 
the Controller of Her Majesty's House- 
hold, the Master of the Horse, the Vice- 
Chamberlain of Her Majesty's House- 
hold, the Secretaries of State under the 
degree of baron, viscounts' eldest sons, 
earls' younger sons, barons' eldest sons, 
Knights of the Garter, Privy Councillors, 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the 
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's 
Bench, the Master of the Bolls, the 
Lords Justice of Appeal, the Lords of 
Appeal, Judges, according to seniority, 
viscounts' younger sons, barons' younger 
sons, baronets, according to date of 
pateuts, Knights of the Thistle, Knights 
of St. Patrick, Knights of the Grand 
Cross of the Bath, Knights Grand Com- 
manders of the Star of India, Knights of 



570 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St 
George, Knights Commanders of the 
Bath, Knights Commanders of the Star 
of India, Knights Commanders of St. 
Michael and St. George, Knights Bache- 
lors, Judges of County Courts, Com- 
panions of the Bath, Companions of the 
Star of India, Companions of St. Michael 
and St. George, Companions of the In- 
dian Empire, eldest sons of the younger 
sons of peers, baronets' eldest sons, 
eldest sons of Knights of the Garter, 
Thistle, St. Michael and St. George, St. 
Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, 
Knights Bachelors, younger sons of the 
younger sons of peers, baronets' younger 
sons, younger sons of knights in the 
same order as eldest sons; and, finally, 
gentlemen entitled to bear arms, in 
whom we recognize our old friend Armi- 
ger or Esquire. The ladies take the 
same rank as their husbands or as their 
brothers; but merely official rank on 
the husband's part does not give any 
similar precedence to the wife. When 
it is remembered that in every large 
assembly, like that of a meeting be- 
fore a great banquet, or a reception, 
a crush, a party, this table of prece- 
dence takes form in the mind of the 
persons who manage or give the enter- 
tainments, and is adhered to with all the 
rigidity possible under the circumstances, 
it is easy to see that conventional form 
is a prime element in every English 
gathering, or at the public dinners. It 
is sometimes galling to cultivated and 
distinguished representatives of the 
United States to lie placed in inferior 
positions at table, far below the Japanese 
Minister, or, possibly some petty East 
Indian potentate, simply because 
America sends abroad only ministers 
with extraordinary powers ; and an am- 
bassador must necessarily take prece- 
dence of a minister. 



The aristocracy represented in this 
court practically governs England; and 
it is striking to observe that in the 
House of Commons the aristocratic and 
landed interest far exceeds any other. 
In the present House, for instance, 
there are one hundred and forty-one 
members who are connected with the 
peerage by birth, and one hundred and 
twenty-eight connected with it by mar- 
riage, and three Irish peers. There 
are one hundred ami sixty-eight officers 
of the army, retired officers, prominent 
officers of the navy, the militia, and 
the yeomanry ; there are seventy-nine 
sons and heirs of peers who are great 
laud-owners, one hundred and ninety- 
eight land-owners, and but four farm- 
ers, one mason, and one miner. It 
is estimated that the House of Com- 
mons represents a collective ownership 
of seven millions live hundred seventy- 
seven thousand nine hundred and sev- 
enty-four acres of land, which yield a 
rent-roll of £5,901,218; but the House of 
Lords represents an ownership in acres 
of fifteen million two hundred thirteen 
thousand two hundred and eighty-nine, 
giving a rental of £12,751, 596; and if 
to this we should add the acres and 
rentals of representative peers, we 
should have, as the total land representa- 
tion of the peerage, ■ — some five hundred 
and twenty-four men, — sixteen million 
four hundred eleven thousand nine 
hundred and eighty-six acres, worth 
£13,542,620 per annum. All but thirty- 
three of the peers who sit in the House of 
Lords are land-owners, and there is paid 
to them, in annuities, pensions, and 
salaries, £598,000 annually, of which the 
peers royal get £100,000 odd, and the 
prelates or spiritual peers, about £165,- 
000. Although the House of Lords is 
pretty fairly divided into Conservative 
and Liberal sections, on questions of land 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



571 



the Liberals flock over to the Conserva- 
tive side. The fortunes represented in 
this ancient, and latterly, rather tried, 
body of aristocrats, are enormous, and 
a few facts relating to them, recently 
published in England, are worth giving 
here. The Duke of Northumberland re- 
ceived £525,000 iu 1873 from the rate- 
payers in London for his old castle in 
Trafalgar square. The Duke of Suth- 
erland had £300,000 invested in railways 
in the north of Scotland iu 1874. It 
was estimated that the value of the 
estates iu the West End of London 
owned by the Duke of Westminster was 
£220,000 a year, — more than a million 
dollars a year as ground rental. The 
Duke of Hamilton, who has coal-fields 
covering nearly nine thousand acres, 
gets royalties of £114,000 annually, and 
the ultimate value of these coal-fields is 
estimated at more than $60,000,00(1. 
This is the noble Duke who sold his 
library for £170,000 in 1884. An idea 
of the fortune of the Marquis of Bute 
may be had from the fact that he spent 
£1,000,000 sterling on Cardiff docks 
to improve them. The Earl of Derby 
owns Bootle and Kirkdale, Liverpool, 
and gets enormous sums from the Mer- 



sey Dock Board. The Earl of Sefton 
got a quarter of a million sterling from 
the corporation of Liverpool for three 
hundred and seventy-five acres of land 
for a park. Earl Dudley exhibited the 
diamonds of his Countess at the Vienna 
Exhibition, and their value was stated 
at £500,000 sterling. The Duke of 
Norfolk sold a market to the Sheffield 
Corporation in 187G for £270,000. Tin- 
Earl of Seafield has forests forty-one 
thousand acres in extent. Their wood 
was estimated in 1856 to be worth 
£1,200,000. It is said that, in thirty 
years from this time, one of these forests 
will give £50,000 a year from its nine- 
teen thousand acres. The Earl of Stam- 
ford got £175,000 for one estate of three 
hundred acres of wooded land in 1875. 
No wonder these great land-owners cling 
to their laud. Hundreds of the smaller 
land-owners, finding their tenant farm- 
ers discontented and deserting them, 
say, in melancholy tone, that they are, iu 
the expressive southern phrase, " land 
poor." Out of the whole seventy-seven 
million eight hundred thousand acres in 
the United Kingdom, twelve men own 
four million four hundred forty thousand 
acres. 



572 



EUROPE /A r STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR. 



The Parliament Palace. — History and Tradition. — The New Home of the Plutocrats. —The Victoria 
Tower. —Westminster Hall. — The House of Lords. — Procedure in the Hereditary Chamber. — 
The Force <>t' Inertia. — Parliamentary Calm. 



THE huge gothic palace opposite the 
Thames is certainly the most im- 
pressive of modern English monuments. 
and is said to be the largest range of 
public buildings erected for several cen- 
turies in Great Britain. Every great 
nation thinks it possesses the first legis- 
lative assembly of the world, and that 
when the members of that assembly 
come together, the listening peoples in 

the f ■ quarters of the globe tremble 

with excitement. But there is some 
foundation for the English boast that 
the Parliament Houses shelter the first 
parliament of the world; for in no two 
other legislative chambers is so wide a 
range of force, and one covering and 
surrounding so vast an extent of sea 
and land ever discussed and directed. 
When we hear on the Continent of 
" parliamentary government," and of 
'■ parliamentary procedure," these terms 
mean something so totally different from 
what they represent in England, that a 
comparison of the difference would lie 
almost astonishing. A mass of flowery 
tradition of almost as rich a gothic as 
tin • exterior of the Parliament Houses 
surrounds all the proceedings of the 
English legislative bodies; yet the pal- 
ace in which they meet is as new 
as the plutocracy which has crept 
into legislative representation in Great 
Britain. 

The new Westminster Palace stands 
on the site of the old royal palace of 
the kings of England from Edward I. 



to Elizabeth. It is first named in a 
charter of Edward the Confessor, made 
a little after 1052; ami within the old 
palace walls the Confessor died. In 
1066, William the Norman held his 
councils there; there the Abbot of 
Peterboro was tried before the king in 
1069; there William Rufus built his 
great hall with its majestic and phe- 
nomenal roof, which not even the mali- 
cious Irish patriots with their dynamite 
can shake, and which is quite as likely 
as royalty itself to last for many cen- 
turies to come. In this great hall Wil- 
liam Rufus held his court in 1099; 
there also Henry I. gave many a fes- 
tival. In 1238 the boisterous Thames 
invaded the great hall, and dignitaries 
of the State went to and fro in boats 
under the roof of William Rufus. But 
repeated conflagrations ate away the 
greater part of the old palace, the great 
hall always being kept in good repair 
for feasts, lor coronations, for arraign- 
ment of personages charged with 
treason, and for the keeping of the 
courts of justice. There Henry VIII. 
defied the legate of the Pope; and 
sometimes parliaments were held therein. 
In 1H34 a great fire swept away St. 
Stephen's Chapel, the House of Cords, 
and many of the surrounding parlia- 
mentary buildings ; and Turner painted 
a picture of the fire. The old House of 
Lords. — the walls of which were very 
thick and strong, and underneath which 
was the cellar where Guy Fawkes hatched 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



573 



his Gunpowder Plot, was taken down 
about 1823. Many of the other fine 
rooms have disappeared, among them 
the Prince's chamber, which was hung 
with tapestry representing scenes in the 
babyhood of Queen Elizabeth. At the 
time of the fire of 1834 
the House of Lords oc- 
cupied the old Court of 
Requests, which was 
hung with tapestry rep- 
resenting the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada. 

This new Parliamen- 
tary palace was begun 
on the 27th of April, 
1810, from the designs 
of the architect Charles 
Barry, who was selected 
outof ninety-seven com- 
petitors. Mr. Barry's 
plan lias often been se- 
verely criticised ; but he 
built with a view to the 
future, and although to- 
day his palace stands op- 
posite to unsightly rows 
of factory chimneys, and 
has but a little way from 
it some of the vilest 
slums of Europe, when 
the march of improve- 
ment goes up the 
Thames, the palace, with 
its noble twin, West- 
minster Abbey, stands in 
no danger of being 
dwarfed by any structure 
which may be placed opposite or near it. 
The enormous pile covers about eight 
acres, and has four principal fronts, the 
terrace on the Thames being nearly one 
thousand feet long. There are eleven 
quadrangles or courts, and within the 
walls are five hundred apartments and 
eighteen official residences, exclusive of 



the Royal State Apartments, the House 
of Lords and the House of Commons, 
and the great Central Hall. Enlight- 
ened by the sad experience of the pre- 
vious fires, Mr. Barry endeavored to 
make his building fire-proof. All the 




INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 



bearers of the floor are cast iron, with 
brick arches from girder to girder. The 
roofs are of wrought-iron cast around 
galvanized plates. The stone of the 
wall is unfortunately beginning to decay, 
and commissions have repeatedly been 
appointed for discovering remedies for 
hardening the walls. 



574 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



The main features of the palace, which 
is of the Tudor style, with hero and 
there imitations of the picturesque town- 
halls of the Flemish eities. are the Clock 
Tower, at the northern end, which is like 
that of the Town-House at Brussels, and 
the ureal Central Hall, with a stone 
lantern and spire. The Clock Tower is 
one of the features of London; it is 
three hundred and sixteen feet from its 
base to the top of the steeple. The 
clock has the largest dials in the world, 
and the minute-hand is said to require, 
on account of its great length, velocity, 
weight, friction, and the action of the 
wind upon it, twenty times more force to 
drive it than the hour-hand, which is nine 
feet long. The mellow tones of the great 
hells of this tower striking the quarters, 
halfs, and full hours, may be heard in 
nearly all the districts of Loudon, espe- 
cially at night ; and as long as Parlia- 
ment is in session the lime light burns on 
the tower's top. 

The Victoria Tower, three hundred 
and thirty-six feet high, is covered with 
figures which, seen from the street, look 
almost infantine, but which are really 
colossal figures, ten feet high. This 
tower was originally intended as a re- 
pository for the state papers and records 
of the nation, and is divided into eleven 
stories, each of which contains sixteen 
tire-proof rooms. The roof of the tower 
weighs four hundred tons. At the portal 
below are great statues of the Lion of 
England, bearing the national banner; 
and here and there, in the carving, are 
the royal arms of England's former 
sovereigns. Here also are the statues of 
tin' guardian saints. St. George, St. 
Andrew, and St. Patrick ; and in a niche 
in the archway over the royal stairs is 
the statue of the present Queen. 

The public entrances to the Houses 
are by the St. Stephen's staircase, and 



by Westminster Hall. In the first days 
of a parliamentary session this hall is 
frequently crowded with people from all 
t-lasses of tin 1 London population, who 
wait patiently hours to see the different 
celebrities pass in, and to cheer and to 

I t them, as their inclination may 

prompt. On such occasions the hall is 
lined on two sides with gigantic police- 
men, forming a line through which the 
deputies of the nation may safely pass 
to their labor ; and no matter how im- 
portant a place in the social scale a spec- 
tator may have, if he does not obey the 
injunctions of these policemen, he is liable 
to be turned out, neck and crop. Mid- 
way on the eastern side of Westmin- 
ster Hall is the members' entrance to the 
House of Commons. At the south end 
a broad (light of steps leads up to St. 
Stephen's porch, and here is a noble 
window, the stained glass of which 
represents the insignia of the different 
sovereigns. On the left there is an 
entrance into St. Stephen's Hall, and 
the Central Hall, which has an immense 
span of stone Gothic roof, is just beyond. 

Of course there is a royal entrance to 
Parliament, and this is from the Victoria 
Tower. A staircase leads to the Nor- 
man porch, beautifully ornamented with 
statues of kings of the Norman line, and 
with frescoes representing scenes in 
Anglo-Norman history. On the right is 
the Queen's Robing-room, and beyond is 
tin' royal gallery, where those fortu- 
nate people who are admitted to see the 
Queen open or prorogue Parliament wait 
until the arrival of the procession, which 
comes through St. James's Park and 
makes its entry through the Victoria or 
royal gallery into the House of Lords. 

The Hereditary chamber, which has 
recently seen so many fierce attacks upon 
its very existence, and which bases its 
claims to respect chiefly upon its period 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



575 



of duration, like Thomas Hardy's vil- the canopied niches with pedestals sup- 
lager, <>f whom his comrades said " He portedbyangelsbearingshields, illustrated 
be might} 7 ancient ; 
that be his chief 
quality." — sits in a 
chamber which is 
modern when com- 
pared even with the 
House of Represen- 
tatives in Washing- 
ton. It was only 
completed in LSliO, 
and Sir Charles Bar- 
ry seems rather to 
have overdone the 
stained glass, the 
escutcheons, the uni- 
corns, uhe lions, the 
gilding, the poly- 
chrome coloring. 
Lord Redesdale is 
reported to have 
said that the House 
of Lords resembled 
the parlor of a casino. 
M. Philippe Daryl, 
in a spiteful moment, 
remarked that, on 
grand days, when 
the peeresses fill the 
gallery, in their blue 
dresses, red flowers 
and fans, and pale- 
green feathers, the 
appearance is that 
of a Bohemian glass 
shop filled with por- 
celain. This spiteful 
saying exaggerates 
the somewhat glar- 
ing incongruities of 

color and of costume perceptible at an as- with the arms of the barons who won 
semblyof rank and fashion on the occasion Magna Charta from KingJohn, the flat ceil- 
of a speech from the throne. The three ing with its royal monograms and its heral- 
great archways with their wall frescoes, die devices, the walls covered with oaken 




DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONS AT THE 
IN' LONDON. 



HOUSE OF COMMONS 



. r )7<; 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



panellings and busts of the sovereigns of 
England, the galleries with red metal 
railings, the great throne at the south 
end covered with its pretty scarlet carpel 
bordered with white rows of lions, and 
fringed with gold colors, the Peers' Lobby 
and the Library, a superb range of 
rooms, and the decorations of the cor- 
ridors which lead to the Central Hall 
and thence to St. Stephen's, and so to 
the Westminster Hall entrance, — arc 
all imposing but scarcely harmonious. 

The throne is of course the chief feat- 
ure of the House of Lords, and is al- 
ways saluted by a peer upon his entrance 
as a kind of concession to royalty's 
omnipresence. There are three divisions 
of the throned canopy. On the central 
one the Queen takes her seat; on the 
right, the Prince of Wales ; and the left 
has been vacant since the death of the 
Prince Consort. It would require pages 
to describe the decorations of the chairs 
of state, and the standards, the crests, 
the shields, the pedestals, the coronal 
pendants, and the shafts surmounted by 
crowns. The peers have seats on benches 
covered with red morocco leather, which 
extend around three sides of the central 
table. Behind these benches are galler- 
ies for the wives and daughters of peers, 
for the press, and for spectators who are 
invited. There are seats for only two 
hundred and thirty-live peers, although 
there are more than double that number 
in the House of Lords; but the sittina'- 
space is never crowded. " It is rare," 
says Mr. Kscott in his " England," " to 
find more than a third of the sittings of 
the House of Lords occupied. There is 
no need for members, as in the House of 
Commons, to come down a couple of 
hours before the business of the day 
begins and bespeak places for themselves 
by affixing a card." 

Another quotation from Mr. Escott's 
able work will give us a capital notion 



of the House of Lords as it appears to 
the comprehension of a cultured Eng- 
lishman : •• It is not only in the respects 
of sumptuous ornamentation, the pres- 
ence of ladies full in the sight of as- 
sembled legislators, that the interior of 
the House of Lords presents such a con- 
trast to the House of Commons. There 
is an air of agreeable abandon in the 
mien and behavior of their lordships. 
The countenances of the members of the 
House of Commons have, for the most 
part, the look of anxiety or preoccupa- 
tion. They enter their chamber like 
men oppressed with the conscious- 
ness of responsibility, burdened by a. 
despotism of immutable laws and rigid 
etiquette. There is nothing of the 
sort in the House of Lords, no painful 
evidence of the thraldom of cere- 
monial rules or customs, or of the ruth- 
less sacrifice of pleasure to duty. The 
whole atmosphere is redolent of well- 
bred nonchalance and aristocratic re- 
pose. For instance, there is in theory a 
Speaker of the House of Lords, called, 
though he always is, the Chancellor, 
just as there is a Speaker of the House 
of Commons; but the functions of the 
two are separated by a gulf which is 
conclusive as to the difference of their 
relative positions, and also as to the spirit 
in which the business of the two Houses 
is conducted. The Speaker of the House 

of Coin ns is something more than 

primus inter pares. For the time being 
lie is regarded as of a nature different 
from and superior to the honorable 
gentlemen by whom he is surrounded. 
Though there is nothing which the House 
of Commons likes better than a personal 
encounter, or a vituperative duel between 
any two members, there is nothing 
approaching to disrespect of the gentle- 
man who is the first commoner in 
England, the custodian and embodiment 
of its privileges, that it will tolerate. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



The Speaker of the House of Commons 
is, in fact, (he commissioner-in-chief of 
the privileges and prerogatives of the 
House of Commons, whom the House 
has accorded to make the depositary of 
its ceremonial interests. To 
the Lord Chancellor no such 
trust has been delivered. The 
peers area self-governed body, 
the preservers of their own or- 
cler,and the protectors of their 
own privileges. Though the 
keeper of the Queen's conscience 
may sit enthroned in majesty on 
the wool-sack, he is not fenced 
round by a divinity sufficient to 
deter noble lords from lounging 
indolently at half-length upon 
its well-padded sides. Save for 
the dignity of his garb the Chan- 
cellor might be nothing more 
than a Chancellor of the Court. 
Unlike the Speaker in the House 
of Commons his lordship does 
not decide who shall have prior- 
ity. When more than one peer 
rises their lordships keep order 
for themselves. The Chancel- 
lor has not even a casting vote 
when the numbers in a division 
are equal, and his only strictly 
presidential duty is to put the 
question, and read the titles of 
measures. On the other hand 
he is the direct representative of ro3'alty on 
all occasions when 1 lie sovereign communi- 
cates with Parliament, and he is the repre- 
sentative official mouth-piece of the House 
of Peers when they hold intercourse with 
public bodies or individuals outside." 

When the Lord Chancellor takes his 
seat, which is shortly after four o'clock. 
he wears a red robe and an ermine 
mantle, a tremendous wig, and three- 
cornered hat. At his feet are seated 
clerks in magisterial robes, and on the 
right of the wool-sack is another clerk, 



whose duty is to keep a list of those 
present. Private bills are first con- 
sidered, the stranger gaining nothing 
from the mumbling formula that the 
Chancellor reads, except thai the ••C'on- 




.ioiix BUIGHT. 

From Photograph by Elliott & Fry, London. 

tents " have it; and then business pro- 
ceeds very much in the same order as in 
the House of Commons, with the ex- 
ceptions above noted in the paragraph 
from Mr. Escott's volume. The Minis- 
terial Whip, or whipper-in, or, to be more 
explicit, the able gentleman who makes 
it his business to see that members are 
on hand for party purposes at the 
proper moments, is as prominent a 
feature of the House of Lords us of the 
Lower House. The spiritual peers, the 
bishops, and the gathering of Privy 



578 



EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 



Councillors and sons of peers in the 
space iii the Strangers' Gallery are feat- 
ures which will strike an American as 
very odd and curious. In the Lower 
House forty is a quorum; in the Upper 
House, three. In the Lower House par- 
ticular notice is required for the asking 
of questions of ministers, and the rule 
is very rigid ; but in the Upper House 
members of the Opposition embarrass 
the government with as many questions 
as they like. "What is the use of 
privileges unless one can employ 
them? So think the noble lords who 
disdain the rigidity of the Commons. 
Nowadays the taking of a division in 
tin' House of Lords is very similar to 
that in the Commons. The "Contents," 
as the " Ayes" are called, go down into 
the right lobby, and the " Non-Contents," 
— the "Noes," — into the left lobby ; and, 
as they return, their votes are counted 
and announced to the Lord Chancellor. 
A striking characteristic of the Eng- 
lish Parliament, and one which renders 
it totally different from that of most 
legislative bodies, is the calmness and 
the gravity with which issues of the 
most tremendous importance are dis- 
cussed in the Upper House. The self- 
confidence and poise are founded upon 
the long possession of great fortunes, 
each member who rises to discuss the 
issue feeling somehow convinced that, 
whatever happens to the world at large, 
or to the British Empire, he will enjoy 
ease and comfort to the end of his days. 
This is not the feeling of a member of 
the French Senate or the French Cham- 
ber of Deputies, nor of the German 
parliamentary bodies, nor of any conti- 
nental assemblies for deliberative pur- 
poses. When the noble lords enter into 
a discussion of the reform of the tenure 
of landed property in Great Britain they 
will perhaps appreciate the lack of calm- 
ness sometimes perceptible in continental 



legislative bodies. They have already 
had a foretaste of what they may expect 
in the heated and animated speeches of 
some of their members on the questions 
of the extension of the franchise and 
the redistribution. In both Houses there 
is a tendency to attack discussion of 
even the most vital crisis in the slow, 
formal, and elaborate manner which 
never ceases to surprise the stranger, no 
matter how many times he may have 
assisted at the beginning of such a dis- 
cussion. England opposes what might 
paradoxically lie called the force of her 
inertia against the immediate settlement 
of pressing questions ; and she does it 
with great effect. Go back to 18G7, 
and you will find that Parliament had 
just finished the slow and steady discus- 
sion and adoption of the Reform Bill. 
Go forward to 1884, and you will find 
Parliament slowly and steadily adopting 
the extension of the franchise with 
almost the same forms, the same men. 
with slight exceptions, and the enormous 
slowness noticeable half a generation 
ago. Mr. Bright is in the same hall, on 
the same platform, at Birmingham. He 
fights the same battle, but it is on a 
slope still further advanced. There has 
been progress, but it has been a thin red 
line steadfastly, unwaveringly advanc- 
ing, without fuss or confusion, without 
cheers or excitement ; progress which 
the nation is content to have slow, be- 
cause it feels it sure. The nation is 
anxious that iniquities and injustice 
abroad should be crushed or thrown 
aside at lightning speed ; hut at home it 
is willing to wait, ready to adopt coin- 
promises, make sacrifices, everything in 
favor of the good old motto " Festina 
lente." Nothing surprises Parliament. 
It is a cynical, blasi body, willing 
enough to engage in a contest, but de- 
termined not to be shaken out of its 
primitive and abiding calm. 



EUROPE 7.V STORM AND CALM. 



579 



CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE. 



The Irish Members. — The House of Commons. — The Speaker. — The Peers and the Creation of New 
Peers. — The Passfcm for the Possession of Lund. — An Active Session.- -Procedure. — Bringing 
In Bills. 



THE Irish Question does not alarm 
the British Parliament. Go back 
to 1807, and you will find the government 
passing a bill for suspending Habeas 
Corpus in Ireland. You will read long 
debates on perturbed affairs in the sister 
island. Go forward to 1881, 1882, 1S83, 
and 1884, the same discussions are re- 
opened, the same rigorous measures of 
coercion are applied, the same dogged 
determination is manifest ; yet progress 
has been made ; concessions where not 
unreasonable have been accorded. Go 
back again to 18G7, you will find Parlia- 
ment discussing the question of an ex- 
pedition of Abyssinia. Go forward again 
to the last twelve months, and you will 
find the Committee of Supply discussing 
the credits of an expedition to the Sou- 
dan. The same programme of the asser- 
tion of the national strength, of pushing- 
forward the national trade, of increasing 
the circle of the British Empire's influ- 
ence, has been steadily pursued during 
the half generation with but little inter- 
ruption because of the ups and downs of 
ministries, with, on the whole, but few 
approaches to danger. The total lack 
of the dramatic faculty in the mass of 
English politicians is noticeable to any 
one who has long lived among Continen- 
tal people. M. Daryl puts down in his 
note-book on the occasion of his first 
visit to the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons, that u no one assumes an air of 
importance, no one rushes away with 
frenzied air, as if about to communicate 



news of the utmost consequence : in short, 
there are no poseurs in English polities 
as there are none in English literature or 
in English art." The Rt. Hon. gentleman 
who comes down in evening dress, re- 
freshed by his frugal dinner, to the 
House of Commons, and who with a 
flower in his button-hole sits listening to- 
the lengthy platitudes of some country 
members, betrays but small impatience 
when he rises to respond to some silly ac- 
cusation or groundless criticism. Prime 
Ministers in England accept with meek- 
ness a vast amount of flummery and tin- 
infinity of useless questions to which 
they are subjected. But when they at- 
tack the business on hand, whether it be 
the extension of the franchise or the rec- 
tification of a frontier, they stale tin- 
case with extreme plainness, rarely with 
any flowers of rhetoric, although Lord 
Beaeonsfield sometimes remembered his 
ancient floridness of metaphor in his later 
speeches. Nothing can be more strik- 
ing than the plainness with which orators 
like Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright ex- 
press their ideas. There is elegance in 
tone and inflection and in look, but none 
of the passionate or flowery utterances 
of a Gambetta or a Castelar. The chil- 
dren of the north, while they appre- 
ciate eloquence, set it coolly aside in 
their own discussions and statements in 
Parliament. A hero is praised, but not 
in exaggerated terms. There is a sense 
of the dignity of the place and the occa- 
sion always noticeable in speeches of 



580 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Parliament except in those that ;m ex- 
cited Irish member, a noble marquis, 
or a piping little lord may indulge in, — ■ 
language which they afterwards regret, 
just as Mr. Chamberlain sometimes lakes 
the bit in his teeth, and wishes he had 
not later on. But within the walls of 
Westminster Palace decorum of speech, 
if imi always of actiou, is the rule. In 
the t'aee of sneh an issue as that about to 
lie decided in Central Asia, where two 
opposing forces seem -wilh resistless 
attraction approaching each other for a 
final and desperate crash, the English 
Prime Minister, although realizing that 
Ins ministry for the moment docs not 
stand upon a secure foundation, slates 
witli utmost calmness, and with ex- 
ceeding brevity just exactly what Eng- 
land is prepared to do. In France lie 
would expect to lie talked about in the 

new-papers for a week after this declara- 
tion. Enthusiastic reporters would de- 
scribe his attitude, his dress, and his 
gestures when he made an important 
.statement. Old anecdotes would be 
furbished up and made to do duty anew. 
In England he goes home quietly at 
three in the morning, after an exhaust- 
ive uight, lo his official residence, and 

nothing is said about his personality in 
the morning papers. When, as in recent 
times, the ebullition of a certain small 
party, like the Irish members ill the 
House of Commons, causes a conflict 
and a. necessity for answer to swiftly 
given and generally odious accusations, 
the calmness of the Ministry seems to 
increase rather than to diminish, and 
(he imperturbability of the Speaker is 
beyond reproach. Mr. Gladstone has 
lailei-ly hail his influence with a grim 
good-humor t" enforce the closure, 
which is recognized as an heroic remedy 
against the delay of public business. 
Mr. Henry .lame--, in one of his spark- 



ling studies called ■• The Point of View," 
makes an American citizen, wearied with 
Europe's petty divisions and formulas, 
indulge in some pleasantries at the ex- 
pense of the British House of Commons, 
which is discussing at great length the 
Ilares-and-Rabbits Bill, the Deceased 
Wife's Sister's Bill, the Burials Bill, 
and other things which, he adds, are of 
such infinitesimal importance. There 
are indeed seasons when the British 
Parliament seems to confine its atten- 
tion to matters belter fitting the con- 
sideration of a town council or a body 
of " selectmen," as we say in New Eng- 
land ; but there are also long periods 
during which every evening, when Par- 
liament sits, is occupied with questions 
of far-reaching influence, and the greatest 
gravity, ami lo pore over the verbatim 
reports of last night's session in the 
"Times" is enough to convince one that a 
conscientious member of Parliament 
must study the history of the whole uni- 
verse. He knows more about the Antip- 
odes than he knows about White 
Chapel, and he hears more talk of the 
Mauritius, the Bermudas, the Afghan 
frontiers, and the Upper Niger, than of the 
pollution of the Thames, or the rebuild- 
ing of Soho, or the condition of the 
poor in Liver] 1 ; in short, the Parlia- 
ment is Imperial first and local after- 
wards. It does not occur to the Ameri- 
can mind that England is an Empire 
until one gels into Parliament, and hears 

tin nstauf repetition of Imperial and 

of Empire. 

It is difficult to reconcile the pre- 
dictions of Radical gentlemen that the 
House of Lords will some day thwart 
the will of the people, ami will then be 

swept away, with the continuous creation 
of peers by cabinets headed by illus- 
trious commoners like Mr. Gladstone 
himself. The creation of these peers is 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



581 



set down as one of the necessities of 
political life ; and it is accepted as per- 
fectly natural that a great orator or a 
plutocrat, who has gathered to himself 
ample acres, should sit in the body to 
which belong the princes of the blood 
royal, all the dukes, marquises, earls, 
viscounts, and barons of the realm. A 
peer is made out of an orator who is 
needed iu the House of Lords, as was the 
case with Lord Derby. The Gladstone 
ministry has created sixteen peerages in 
three years ; the preceding ministry made 
forty-three peers in six years, and of 
their numbers was Mr. Disraeli, elevated 
to the title of Lord Beaconstield. The 
Gladstone Cabinet, before that, made 
thirty-six peers in five years, and one 
peeress, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. 
Lord Beaconsfield himself said, in one 
of his early novels, that the English 
peerage was due to three sources, — the 
spoliation of the Church, the open and 
flagrant sale of its honors by the elder 
Stuart, and the boroughmoiigering of our 
own times. " These," he added, " are 
the three main sources of the existing 
peerages, and, in my opinion, disgraceful 
ones." Mr. Disraeli used his scornful 
phrase before successive Reform bills had 
made Parliament a cleanlier body than 
of old. "But it is still true," says an 
able Radical writer, " that the exercise 
of electoral influence is the surest road 
to the House of Lords." This same writer 
says : " "When the Tories were in office, 
in 1866, several peers were created who 
owe their titles to political partisanship, 
and. from 1874 to 1880, the large-acred 
Tories had a rare time of it. while 
superannuated or incompetent colleagues 
of the minister were elevated into the 
House of Lords when offices could not 
be found for them. For nearly forty 
years Sir John Parkington sat for 
what was once the pocket-borough of 



Durham. In 1874 the people of Dur- 
ham asserted their independence and 
rejected Sir John. He was at once 
created Lord Hampton. Colonel Wilson 
Pallen, another old colleague, had to be 
provided for, so he was created Lord 
Wilmarleigh. The Ormsby Gores had 
done much for the Tories in Shropshire 
and other counties, and the late Lord 
Harlech had his reward in his elevation 
to the Upper House, in 1876. Mr. 
John Tollemache had long served the 
Tories in Cheshire and Suffolk ; he had 
his reward the same year by being created 
Lord Tollemache. Mr. Gerard had helped 
to score for Lancaster ; he became Lord 
Gerard. Mr. Hilton Joliffe, whose seat for 
Wells was abolished by the last Reform 
Bill, was consoled with the title of Lord 
Hylton. Sir Charles Adderley retired 
from the ministry and became Lord Nor- 
ton. Mr. Disraeli became Earl of Bea- 
consfield; Lord Cairns became Earl 
Cairns ; and Mr. Gathorne-Hardy became 
Viscount Cranbrook." This same writer 
makes the assertion that, since the acces- 
sion of the House of Hanover, a very 
large portion of the modern aristocracy, 
probably one-half, owe one or more titles 
to the exercise of electoral intimidation. 
But whatever influence the House of 
Lords may be disposed to exercise is 
more than neutralized by the constant 
and deliberate attempts of the House of 
Commons to bring up the laboring classes 
to a position where they can defend 
their rights, and to actually place their 
rights in their own hands, as has been 
done iu the case of the agricultural 
laborers by the passage of the recent. 
Franchise Bill. 

The passion for the possession of land 
by men who have accumulated much 
wealth in England surpasses all other 
passions. For a long time to come, des- 
pite the agrarian agitation, the owner- 



582 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

ship of land will be the basis of power windows painted with the arras of the 
and influence and the stepping-stone to boroughs, with the green glass compart- 
a fixed place among the nobility. It is incuts in its ceiling, tinted with floreated 
said that out of one great manufacturing circles, and with its Hour of perforated 
establishment in South Wales two peer- cast-iron. "It is impossible," says 
ages and a baronetcy have been pro- Mr. Timbs in his "Curiosities of Lon- 
duced during the present century. This don," " to burn the House down. Yon 
was brought about by the absorption of might set fire to and destroy the furni- 
all the hind in the neighborhood by the ture and fittiugs, but the flooring, walls, 
wealth of the Welsh iron-masters. A ami roof would remain intact." Mr. 
Mr. Loyd, who went up to London own- Timbs did not think of dynamite; even 
ing no acres at all, leaves as his sue- that, as we have recently seen, can do 
cessor a son owning more than thirty hut comparatively slight damage. On 
thousand acres of land in eleven different three sides of the House are galleries for 
counties, and a seat in the House of members and. strangers, the six hundred 
Lords. The law and the army furnish and fifty odd M.P.s having scarcely 
from time to time able recruits to the three hundred seats around the table, 
Upper House; and there are also what upon which lie the papers and docu- 
are called the Civil Service peerages, incuts, and just behind which, at the 
There distinguished servants of the head of the room, Mr. Speaker is en- 
Crown are placed to give the country the throned upon a kind of Gothic chair on 
advantage of their experience, legal and a platform. The reporters are huddled 
general. Since 1859 the House of Lords into a small gallery over the Speaker's 
has had added to its ranks Lords Raglan, chair, and above them is a little cage, out 
Civile, Strathearn, Sandhurst, Napier, of which the ladies are allowed to look, 
Magdala, Airey, Wolseley, and Alcester. as Oriental dames peer through the mys- 
Historians, poets, and novelists, and terious lattices of Turkish towns. At 
such small-beer, rarely reach the House the north end of the House is the Har, 
of Lords, unless they are also important and there sits the Sergeant-at-Arms, a 
wire-pullers ami distinguished politi- terrible and important functionary. On 
cians. the Speaker's right, on the front bench, 
The House of Commons in tin' midst sit the ministers ; on the left front bench, 
of an active session looks like a modern the leaders of the Opposition, the Ins 
chapel which has been taken possession fronting the Outs so closely that even a 
of by a genteel company of practical whisper can be heard. Below the Speak- 
inen who feel somewhat out of place, er's chair stands the Clerk's table, on 
If the great House of Representatives which lies the Speaker's mace while the 
in Washington, with its noise, its sudden session is in progress; ami on either 
darting to ami fro of pages, the clapping side of the House runs the lobby, into 
of hands, and the buzz of voices from which, at a division, the members pass, 
the galleries, is confusing to t he si ranger, the •■ Ayes " tO the west, the " Noes" to 

the British House of Commons is simplv the cast. This has been the home of 

bewildering. Ushered through the brill- the Lower House of Parliament since 

iant lobby into one of the dark galler- 1852, and here the sec 1 and third 

ies, the visitor looks down upon a small stages of parliamentary reform have 

and compact hall with its twelve side been originated anil pushed through. 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



583 



The procedure in the House of Com- 
mons is simple enough, but too long 
for detailed description here. " The 
House," says Mr. Escott, "is at once 
a mirror and epitome of the national 
life. There is no rumor of any sort, 
soeial, commercial, diplomatic, or politi- 
cal, which does not make its way into the 
lohhv of tin' House." " Before ' the 
House," says Mr. Palgrave, "passes 
yearly every national anxiety." In the 
House of Commons originates the taxa- 
tion of the realm, and there also are 
born most of the bills which directly 
affect home polities. A member of Par- 
liament gets no compensation for his 
services, and the unhappy men who 
try to follow their regular professions 
and keep pace with political life very 
often break down under the strain, or 
arc compelled to neglect their private 
interest, and thus to travel on the verge of 
ruin. A conscientious memberof Parlia- 
ment has to work in committee in the 
morning, and if he does not go to secure 
one of the three hundred regular seats, or 
a eoigue of vantage in the members' gal- 
lery while the chaplain is saying prayers 
at four o'clock at each session, even if he 
only comes in after dinner, he will find 
his strength all taken by the long ses- 
sion, which on several days in the week 
docs not close before two and three in 
the morning. The 1 scene in the Com- 
mons, with these politicians of the three 
kingdoms, some lounging, some sitting 
erect in correct morning' or in faultless 
evening dress, and every one, excepting 
the person who happens to be speaking, 
with his hat jammed over his eyes, is 
rather amusing. The daily programme 
is usually the same. Before the dinner 
hour, which grows later every year in 
London, petitions and private bills are 
in order. If an important debate is 
expected, after dinner, members (lock 



down from the clubs and from their 
houses, anil by placing a. card in the 
brass rack on a seat, or leaving papers 
or gloves, they secure a good place for 
the evening's work. The presentation 
of petitions is simple in the extreme, and 
is often merely the inscription of the 
subject and its origin, says Mr. Escott, 
on a piece of paper, sent to the report- 
ers' gallery. There are, however, official 
books on the table in front of the Speak- 
er's chair for the reception of these 
important documents. A member who 
wishes to be troublesome can have the 
petition read out at length by one of the 
clerks at the table. Next come notices of 
motions relative to questions, resolutions, 
or bills; and these motions illustrate in 
the amplest manner the inconvenience of 
having a responsible ministry that sits 
in either House. The time and patience 
wasted over these absolutely formal and 
generally useless questions it is impossible 
to estimate. As there are always more 
motions than can be handled readily; 
members have to ballot for days on 
which they may present their motions ; 
and many bores are thus eliminated. 
Tuesdays and Fridays are for motions. 
Mondays and Thursdays are govern- 
ment nights, Wednesday is open for hills 
only, not for motions; but on this day 
Parliament rises before dinner and does 
not sit again in the evening. 

The bringing in of bills and carrying 
them through their different stages to 
the loyal assent, which makes them Acts 
of Parliament, is attended with numer- 
ous formulas, which come from the old 
Norman procedure. When a bill having 
passed through the various stages in the 
Commons is sent up to the Lords, the 
clerk of the Commons indorses on it 
" Soi bailli aux seigneurs;" and a bill 
sent down from the Lords to the Com- 
mons is indorsed in the same way. When 



584 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



a bill lias passed through both Houses, 
and Majesty has given its consent in 
person to its being made law, it' it be 
a bill of supply, the Clerk reads forth the 
French phrase : " La Reigne remercie 

sis hmis suji'ls. (trrejiti'itt bur bi'iu'-roji'iii'i', 

etainsile veult." To other public bills 
the form of assent is, " La Reigne b- 
veult;" to private bills, " Soi fait 
comme il est desire." But in rare in- 



stances, where the Koyal assent is re- 
fused to a bill, the Clerk says, "ia 
Reigne s'avisera." (The Queen will 
think about it.) All private and per- 
sonal bills are passed upon petitions, 
and many of them have to be advertised 
in newspapers, especially if there is any 
interference proposed with land or with 
other property. 



EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 



585 



CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX. 



The Treasury Whip. — Parliamentary Forms. — Oddities of the House of Commons. — Authority of the 
Speaker. — The Home Rule Members. — Irishmen in London. — Anomalies of English Represen- 
tation. — " Reform." — The Reconstruction of London's Municipal Government. 



THE Treasury Whip, or the party 
agent who attends to the as- 
sembling of the majority for the govern- 
ment during any important debate, is 
more active and indispensable in the 
House of Commons than in the House 
of Lords. He has an office hard by the 
Parliament, whence he can send forth 
lithographed notices by scores, whipping 
into the ranks the deserters and neg- 
ligent ; and in many cases he sends 
despatches hundreds, even thousands of 
miles. A prominent member of Parlia- 
ment will travel from Nice or Naples at 
the summons of the Whip without com- 
plaining, and it is amusing to notice the 
precipitation with which active members 
bolt their dinners at the club and depart 
from the comfortable bachelor palaces in 
the gustiest and muddiest of weather so 
soon as the summons is heard. After 
a great discussion, when the issue is to 
be decided by a division, the lobbies of 
the House of Commons seem like the 
ante-chambers of a palace on fire. 
People are rushing to and fro, some to 
summon, others to answer summons. 
The legislators of the Kingdom master 
as obediently as school children under 
the Peers' gallery, and then divide to 
right and left into their respective lob- 
bies, after which the door-keepers in- 
dulge in an exploration in the hall and 
even look under the benches to sec if 
any member has forgotten his duty. 
Back again come the voters, sometimes 
with the tumult of triumph manifest, bul 



only on occasions when the issue is 
national. The dignity of the House is 
rarely startled out of its equilibrium, al- 
though in recent years, under the vexa- 
tions of the Home Rule party, and the 
strong and sweeping accusations made in 
the heat of the struggle for direction of 
the foreign policy or for the franchise bill, 
there have been wrangles and disputes 
quite as singular and as much to be dep- 
recated as those which often occur in 
legislative chambers in Latin countries. 
But those who wish an elaborate des- 
cription of the procedure in the House 
of Commons, will find it in Mr. Escott's 
excellent book, already referred to, or 
in many a compendium of Parliamentary 
law. The House is full of formulas 
handed down from generations when 
monarchy was by no means so limited as 
it is to-day in its prerogatives, the 
manner of going into committee, by 
replacing the Speaker for the time being 
by the Chairman of the ways and means 
being one of the most interesting of 
these survivals. It comes, Mr. Escott 
tells us, from the old days of the Tudor 
and the Stuart despotism. The Speaker's 
motion " That I do now leave this 
chair" is based upon the old exclusion 
of the King's emissary and spy, their 
speaker, win mi the Commons did not 
choose to have in their midst when they 
were engaged in important committee 
work. The presence of the ministry in 
Parliament, the acceptance or rejection 
by the government of clauses and 



58(5 



EVROTK IX STORM AND CALM. 



amendments in bills, the constant decla- 
rations of the Government's policy, and 
the lengthy and evasive speeches of the 
Premier or of bis right-hand man, when 
the Ministry desires not to commit itself , 
— all these are strange, and striking to 
the stranger, but seem perfectly natural, 
and the only proper way to the English 
mind. In fact, nothing can exceed the 
rigidity of the English belief that things 
arc done in England as they should be 
done, and that foreign ways, if they dif- 
fer from English ways, must necessarily 
be erroneous. 

One of the oddities of the House of 
Commons is that the Speaker cannot 
leave lus chair for the evening until the 
adjournment is formally moved, and if 
Mr. Biggar, or other of the enemies of 
the present. Speaker, could manage to pre- 
vent the moving of adjournment until 
all the members had left, the Speaker 
would stand an excellent chance of re- 
maining in his place all night. It is 
recorded that the House was once 
deserted save by the Speaker himself, 
who had to sit on ami on until a mem- 
ber of Parliament should be hunted up, 
and brought in to make the necessary 
motion. .Mr. Escott tell us that when 
the House session is closed for the 
night, t'ne Speaker, "rising from his 
chair, bows to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, who acts as his adjutant, and 
who returns obeisance. Immediately 
after this is audible the cry of ' Who 
goes home?' a relic of those times when 
members of Parliament used to make up 
parties for the homeward journey to 
protect themselves against the attacks of 
highwaymen. The police in the lobbies, 
however, do not echo this shout, Imt 
simply announce that ' House is up.' " 

The authority of the Speaker lias Keen 
much more definite and pronounced since 
L881 . at which period the small but com- 



pact Irish party undertook the obstruc- 
tion of public business by a campaign 
such as only the Celtic mind, with its 
whimsical love of fun, and its ingenuity 
when bent on annoyance, could devise. 
The adoption of the closure, bor- 
rowed from French parliamentary prac- 
tice, was much criticised when first 
brought into operation ; but it has on 
the whole worked well. It must be 
conceded that a parliamentary body has 
the right to force a decision as to the 
closing of a discussion which is sterile 
and profitless, when public business is 
delayed and pressing. The Irish rejoin- 
der to this is of course that all is fair in 
war, in anything which hinders the 
action of England, and, furthermore, that 
(Mil Ireland will not getherrights unless 
she insists upon thrusting them on the 
public view at any and all hours. Frosty 
and well-bred Mr. Parnell, with his 
keen incisive way of speaking, his 
polished manners, and his imperturbable 
temper, is now ami then somewhat 
embarrassed by the action of the more 
impulsive members of the Irish group, 
some of whom would, if they dared, dance 
a jig on tin Speaker's table, and play leap- 
frog over the venerable Premier's shoul- 
ders, if they thought that by so doing they 
could cause a, check in the management 
of public affairs. It is noteworthy that 
when an Irish member has something 
definite to say, and says it in a manly 
and straightforward fashion, he is almost 
always listened to, if not with sympathy, 
at least with courtesy, and the present 
Premier is extremely painstaking in his 
responses even to the youngest of the 
boisterous company. Several very young 
men have been returned to the Home 
Pule Party in Parliament, and among 
them is a son of the famous novelist and 
essayist, Justin McCarthy, and T. P. 
O'Connor, who possesses real eloquence, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



587 



and who, although he wrote a bitter and 
savage book on Lord Beaconsfield, 

actually possessed the g l-will and 

possibly the admiration of Disraeli until 
his latest day. The loyal Irishmen, 
those who do not affiliate with the Sepa- 
ratists and Home Killers, are as fire- 
brands to their noisier and more patriotic 
brethren, who never fail to engage in a 
contest which perhaps has been merely 
hinted at in some very mild remarks. 
Many of the young Irish members find 
their parliamentary laurels rather diffi- 
cult to wear. In London they are en- 
vironed with an atmosphere of dislike 
which no sensitive man can long endure 
without feeling resentment and allowing 
it to warp his judgment; and, further- 
more, as they have no compensation and 
little time for professional work of any 
sort, they accumulate obligations more 
pressing than those which they have 
towards their constituencies. 

The Home Rule members of the Irish 
representation in Parliament are twenty 
in number, and it is to an American 
curious to note the small number of 
electors in comparison with the popula- 
tions of the districts by which they were 
placed in office. Hut a little more than 
five thousand electors voted to put John 
Deasy ami Mr. Parnell in Parliament as 
the representatives of Cork, which has 
one hundred thousand inhabitants. Put, 
in considering the number of electors, 
we have to remember that large numbers 
of electors in Ireland were permanently 
disfranchised as a condition of Catholic 
emancipation, and that it took the pens 
until 1850 to decide that it was safe to 
allow the Irish suffrage to be lowered to 
a £12 rental, which has been retained at 
this figure ever since that time ; and not 
later than 18.s:i a bill for the assimila- 
tion of Irish to English electoral rights 
was thrown out. It is also true that 



Irish voters are compelled to appear in 
person if objected to at the revision 
courts, and there is a system of legalized 
conspiracies for disfranchising objections, 
similar to those which were kept up by 
the action of the House of Lords and 
its confederates in Great Britain until 
public opinion swept them away. Mr. 
Justin McCarthy was returned from 
Athlone, which has six thousand nine 
hundred inhabitants, by three hundred 
and sixty-five electors; Mr. Dawson, 
from Carlow, with seven thousand inhab- 
itants, by three hundred and eight elect- 
ors ; Mr. Moore, from Clonmel, which 
has ten thousand population, by four 
hundred and thirty-four voters; Mr. 
O'Donnell, from Dungarvan, by three 
hundred and ten electors, out of seven 
thousand population ; Mr. Kenny, from 
Ennis ; Mr. Laver, and Mr. T. P. O'Con- 
nor, the last two from Galway, which has 
nearly nineteen thousand inhabitants, 
by one thousand one hundred and twenty- 
four electors ; Mr. Smythwick, from Kil- 
kenny, Mr. Collins, from Kinsale, and 
The O'Donoghue and Messrs. Mac- 
Mahon, Gabbitt, O'Brien, Redmond 
Power, Leamy, W. II. Redmond, and 
Sir John McKcnna, by electors in about 
the same proportion as the others. 

The English representation in the Par- 
liament of Great Britain is divided into 
that from cities, boroughs, and districts, 
and that from counties and divisions ; 
and in the last session of Parliament 
one hundred and seventy-nine cities, 
boroughs, burghs, and districts, possess- 
ing an aggregate population of three 
million two hundred and eighty thousand 
three hundred and thirty-eight, and sub- 
mitting to aggregate assessments of 
something like £38,000,000, had in Par- 
liament two hundred and thirty mem- 
bers, who were returned by four hun- 
dred forty-three thousand six hundred 



588 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and seven electors; seventy-two cities, 
boroughs, burghs, and districts, having 
eleven million five hundred and thirty- 
seven thousand one hundred and twenty- 
four population, and an aggregate elector- 
ship of one million five hundred and two 
thousand four hundred and thirty-six. as 
well as an aggregate assessment of 
£253,710,700, returned but one hundred 
and thirty members ; ninety-eight coun- 
ties and divisions, with seven million 
four hundred and ninety-four thousand 
eight hundred and three population, and 
an aggregate electorship of four hundred 
and eighty-seven thousand three hundred 
and eighty-seven, and aggregate assess- 
ments of £102,427,491, returned one 
hundred and fifty-eight members ; while 
sixty-one other counties and divisions, 
with twelve million live hundred and 
forty thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-seven population, seven hundred 
aud fifty-seven thousand one hundred 
and twelve aggregate electorship, and 
an aggregate assessment of twenty- 
five per cent, larger than that of the 
whole ninety-eight other counties and 
divisions, returned but one hundred 
and twenty-live members. This will 
strike any one as a curious anomaly ; and 
" these figures demonstrate," says a writer 
in the ••Financial Reform Almanac," 
•• with equal clearness, first, the mon- 
strous anomalies of our present electoral 
system : and. secondly, the folly of our 
pseudo-philosophers, who imagine that 
the only true principle of representative 
government, namely government by 
majorities, is erroneous, and ought to he 

partially nullified by minorities. They ha\ e 

so far succeeded by means of their three- 
cornered crotchet as to place the great 
towns of Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, 
Glasgow, and Manchester on a footing 
of perfect equality, as regards the vote 
power, with the most insignificant place 



in the kingdom. ... It is prepos- 
terous that forty-two little boroughs 
should send forty-two members to the 
House of Commons, while the nineteen 
great citizen boroughs, with more than 
twenty-seven times the population, and 
with twenty-live times more electors, and 
assessed at nearly fifty times the amount 
of income tax, have Iv one more rep- 
resentative. To secure a real representa- 
tion of the people one thing is essentially 
requisite, namely, electoral districts, 
doing away with the distinction between 
counties and boroughs, whose real and 
permanent interests are identical." 

During the recent campaign in favor 
of the extension of the franchise, and 
while the plan for redistribution was be- 
ing arranged, a list of one hundred and 
sixty towns and places, each one of 
which had more than ten thousand popu- 
lation, but none of which had direct 
representation in Parliament, or were 
incorporated for parliamentary purposes 
with represented cities, boroughs, or dis- 
tricts, was published. These one hun- 
dred and sixty towns had an aggregate 
population of three million two hundred 
and ninety-seven thousand two hundred 
and seventeen, exceeding that of the 
seventy-two boroughs ami cities, which, 
as we see above, were represented by 
one hundred and thirty members. Vet 
they had no voice in Parliament what- 
ever; whilst the latter sent seventy-two 
members to the House of Commons 
alone. A striking illustration of the 
manner in which the system worked is 
furnished by St. Helens, which has a 
population of nearly sixty thousand in- 
habitants but no member in Parliament : 
while Port Arlington, with scarcely two 
thousand five hundred inhabitants, has 
just as much vote-power as Manchester. 

lint the House of Commons is indus- 
triously reforming itself, and reforming 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



589 



out of existence the privileges which 
have so long kept millions of men who 
should have been voters practically non- 
voters ; and the Distribution Bill, which 
has been led into the public view by the 
new-born Franchise Bill, is to sweep with 
a vigorous broom the old constituencies. 
All boroughs which have less than fifteen 
thousand inhabitants are to be merged 
in surrounding county districts ; those 
boroughs with less than fifty thousand 
inhabitants are to have but one member 
each ; and those between fifty and one 
hundred and sixty-five thousand are to 
retain two members each. All urban 
constituencies with more than one hun- 
dred and sixty-five thousand inhabitants, 
and all counties, without exception, are 
to be divided into districts, represented 
each by a single member. Both Sir 
Stafford Northcote and Lord Salisbury 
are understood to adhere warmly to this 
plan, which has nevertheless been tried 
with small success for several years in 
the French Parliament. Gambetta tried 
with all his might to break up thesingle- 
member constituencies, and to substitute 
for Scrutin d' Arrondissement the Scrutin 
da Liste ; in other words, to build a com- 
pact and vigorous party which could be 
handled and controlled by the usual 
party agencies, rather than to allow- the 
continuance in office of a set of petty 
representatives, each committed to all the 
hobbies, and possibly all the faults, of 
his small group. Liberals like the late 
Mr. Fawcett, after a careful survey of 
the Redistribution Bill proposed by their 
party, decided that they could not give 
it their support. Mr. Courtney even 
resigned his office as Secretary of the 
Treasury, and when lie did so said that 
Mr. Fawcett, if lie had lived, would have 
retired from the postmaster-generalship 
as an indication of his disbelief in the 
one-member system. The Redistribution 



Bill, in its present shape, is the result of 
a compromise, which seems to have been 
somewhat suddenly resolved upon, and 
to which the leading statesmen of both 
parties will adhere, because they feel in 
honor bound to do so, although, on 
second thought, they may not find the 
measure the best that could have been 

proposed. Parliament professes to have 
been anxious to secure a. substantial 
representation of minorities, and of all 
important interests, and that it can do 
so by separating the rural from the 
urban voters. 

The history of England lor the past 
thirty years may be said to represent a 
constant progress towards electoral re- 
form, and towards an amelioration of the 
abuse consequent on the maintenance 
of privileges, — progress checked and 
hindered, sometimes absolutely set aside, 
by the pressing anxiety of attending to 
affairs abroad. England is willing and 
able to set her house in order, but every 
time she takes the mop in hand, and 
has made ready to goon with the cleans- 
ing, a disturbance outside calls her 
forth, ami the internal economy must 
suffer for the time being. Two great 
parties in the enormous metropolis of 
London are at present eager to do battle 
over the question of municipal reform. 
The absorption, the concentration, the 
centralization party finds itself con- 
fronted by the passionate admirers of 
the vestry system. The old-fashioned 
and amiable gentlemen who have long 
been prominent in vestry affairs look 
forward with horror and with some little 
contempt to the advent of professional 
politicians; and the question would be 
decided within a year, doubtless in 
favor of the centralizing party, were 
it not for the constant aggravation of 
the Egyptian problem, ami the necessity 
for the nation to concentrate its strength 



590 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 

upon extension and self-protection aristocratic owners, who have nothing to 

abroad. Very likely the Redistribution gain and much to lose by (he march of 

Bill has been put hack for a long time popular improvement, — it is to these 

by the death of Gordon at Khartoum; things that the delay in the rebuilding of 

but, although delayed and harassed London, as Paris and Vienna have Keen 

by the peculiar duties which England rebuilt, is to be attributed. No emperor 

chooses to assume abroad, the plan of can, with magic wand, cause streets of 

liberal reform is never relinquished, palaces to rise where now there are 

Dining a period of .six \ ears of Con sen- grimy acres of three-story, mean-lookinc 

ative rule, when Imperialism was thought houses, built of greasy bricks. The 

of more importance by those who had landed interests in London clash : they 

the governing power in their hands could not be brought harmoniously to 

than the correction of abuse and the work in favor of a great improvement, 

consequent spread of contentment at and London must wait for its rebirth 

home, the Liberals never lost hope, and until the country has passed through its 

il..\ took up the unfinished work where bitter experience of agrarian reform, 

they had left it when they left power. Doubtless London, like Paris, will al- 

Tlie centralization of the city govern- ways be kept more or less under the 

meut in Loudon, or, to speak by the card, thumb of Parliament, for it is the capi- 

the reconstruction of the government of tal, and, as such, must be subjected to 

London by means of a municipal bill, will restrictions and rules to which other 

doubtless be taken up by the same Parlia- cities might with reason object. But 

ment which will have to inaugurate some when some mighty alchymist has melted 

of the sternest legislation ever known in up in his crucible of municipal reform 

England with regard to the tenure of all the antique plate and jewelry of the 

land, and it is not until the tenure of State, and all the formulas and rubbish 

land has been changed in its form that of the petty vestries, with their oioss- 

the absolute reconstruction of London purposes and their maintenance of old 

and of its government can lie hoped for. privileges, there will arise out of the 

It is the privileges of gentlemen like the vapors a capital which, while it may 

Dukes of Portland, Bedford, and West- not be gifted with the beauty of more 

minster ; it is the fact that vast tracts of southern cities, will have a mightand ele- 

land within the metropolitan district gance, and a grandeur worthy of the 

are in the possession of families from largest collection of human beings in any 

whose grasp they will not. under present civilized country, 
legislation, be allowed to pass, and of 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



.591 



CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN. 



The Evolution Towards Democracy. — Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. — English Directne 
and Plainness of Speech. — Lord Ilartington. — Mr. Labouchere. — English Sources of Revenue. 

— The Land Tax. — How it is Evaded. — Free Trade in Land. — Taxing the Privileged Classes. 

— The Coming Struggle. 



N 



(IT even the first gentleman in 
England pretends to deny that 
the country is formally engaged in tin.' 
gradual evolution towards democracy. 
Now and then some two-penny dema- 
gogue, who wishes to obtain notoriety as 
an agitator, insists that the progress is 
imaginary rather than real, and that 
nothing can lie accomplished save by 
violent and immediate revolution. Hut 
this sort of demagogue is not even con- 
sidered respectable within the limits of 
his own advanced party, and to he thought 
not respectable, in the English sense of 

the word, is equivalent to the c plete 

wrecking of one's hopes. Radicalism 
itself, from the aristocratic point of view, 
is naturally thought low. If a gentle- 
man of birthand position like Sir Charles 
Dilke, or a gentleman of undoubted ca- 
pacity and fitness for affairs like Mr. 
Chamberlain, openly associates with the 
Radicals, he is qualified as eccentric, but 
the unwritten and unspoken criticism 
which those who daily meet these gentle- 
men in the political arena reserve to 
themselves, is that their eccentricity is 
perilously near the verge of the disrepu- 
table. 

Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamber- 
lain, and other advanced standard bear- 
ers of the democratic idea, trouble them- 
selves but little as to the opinion of the 
aristocratic class. They occupy them- 
selves in the most industrious and prac- 
tical manner with directing the pacific 



revolution which will bring in its train 
greater changes than any other country 
in Europe has seen in this generation. 
Mr. Chamberlain is perhaps, open to the 
reproach of too great frankness in 
pointing out the sweeping reforms or 
alterations which are to lie made in the 
systems of government and society, lie 
rouses an antagonism which otherwise 
might have slumbered contentedly on its 
carved and painted benches. What Mr. 
Bradlaugh, in his Hall of Science, may- 
or may not say , is thought by the mem- 
bers of the House of Lords of small 
consequence : but when a cabinet minis- 
ter and the Director of the Board of 
Trade openly a'dvocates changes in the 
property laws, they are roused not only 
to resentment but to action. There 
never was, in the history of American 
political campaigning, a. more active, 
energetic and determined canvass of a 
country than that undertaken against 
Mr. Gladstone and his works by the 
Marquess of Salisbury, in the autumn 
and siunmer of l.S.St : neither is there in 
the heat of American political speaking 
any greater violence of language, or, I 
hail almost said, vituperation, than was 
manifest in the speeches of those who 
opposed the Franchise Bill. That state- 
liness and elegance of diction in writing 
and speaking on political affairs, which 
was once characteristic of the great lords 
of the country, has long been conspicu- 
ous by its absence. It was the firmness 



M'2 EUROPE JX STORM AND CALM, 

of their belief in the durability of their vast empire and destroy our influence 

privilege which gave them such self-pos- abroad. Let us not listen to Quakers, 

session. Now they begin to see that like Mr. Bright, and Utopian theorists, 

the increase in the Dei iracy's power like Mr. Chamberlain, or to shriekers, 

fatally means the decrease of their like Mr. Bradlaugh, who would have us 

own. concentrate our whole attention upon the 

Every well-educated Englishman of poorer classes at home." Between the 

Protestant training has that inconven- claims of the old aristocracy and the 

ient conscience which will not permit new democracy, — claims so diametri- 

hiin, for a long time, even when it is for cally opposed to each other, — a Liberal 

his own interest, to advocate a measure minister of war, like Lord Hartington, 

which may do wrong to any one. and must from time to time, suffer great 

since the full and frank exposure by the perplexity. A Liberal cabinet, with men 

apostles of the new democracy of the within it who believe that England 

abuses of privilege which were grafted should send no military forces on con- 

upon the land system and upon the quest, and men within it who believe 

grounding of political power on the pos- just the opposite thine.', is a divided 

session of land, many a lord of high force, which can but suffer from the divis- 

degree is beginning to confess that a. ion. That notable English conscience 

change would not be unwelcome even which prevails, as we have said, among 

to himself. Men like the Marquis of the aristocratic as well as lower down in 

Salisbury 7 , who have a linn belief in the the social scale, is conspicuous in the 

Imperial idea, in the necessity for Eng- case of the Marquis of Hartington, the 

land of a constant aggressive attitude, eldest, son of one of the very greatest of 

in the perpetuation of Lord Beacons- all the English land-owners, the Duke of 

field's dangerous policy, comfort them- Devonshire, whose estates extend into 

selves with the conclusion that no fourteen different counties, and who 

democracy can maintain or direct the owns nearly two hundred thousand 

antique policy of Great Britain without acres of land, which give him almost as 

having the protection of a governing many pounds sterling as annual rental, 

class having leisure, because of its for- who has forty-two church-livings in his 

tune got from land, to occupy itself in a gift, six magnificent country-seats, — 

dignified manner with the conduct of Chatsworth, Hardwick, Holker Hall, 

armies and navies, with the regulation Compton Place, Bolton Abbey, Lisniore 

of treaties ami the chess-board games of Castle. — and Devonshire House in Lon- 

diplomacy. "A democracy," so say don. Not more than three centuries 

these noble lords, " would place us in the and :i half ago the head of this great 

precarious posit ion of a second or third house was an obscure country gentle- 

cla^s power in Europe. If we have an man in Suffolk : to-day his descendants 

upheaval of the substrata of society, and hold three peerages and two hundred 

the accession to power of men who know ami twenty thousand acres of land in 

nothing of our old plan of government, England and Ireland. This founder of 

wc shall go to war. Give us Beacons- the house was William Cavendish, sup- 

licld's came, with its risks and dangers, posed to be he who wrote the life of 

rather than the stay-at-home policy of Cardinal Wolsey, and whom Shakespeare 

the Radicals, who would break up our mentions. The Cavendishes have always 



EUROTE JN STORM AND CALM. 



593 



had the reputation of being good land- 
lords, and a more touching demonstration 

of affection was never witnessed in Eng- 
land than at the great gathering of the 
tenants at Chatsworth, when Lord Fred- 
erick Cavendish, who had been assassi- 
nated in Ireland, was brought home to 
be buried. 

The Marquis of Hartington, now a 
comely gentleman of fifty, is reported 
to be utterly frank in his opinions as 
to the future. He was once asked 
by an American how he could con- 
tribute to a current of opinions which 
would one day sweep away all mem- 
bers of his class, and he answered that 
there was no help for it; by which 
he doubtless meant that his conscience 
compelled him to it. .Such men stand 
high in the estimation of both parlies; 
at the same time, like the young noble- 
man in Mr. Henry James's story, they 
have not the remotest notion that all the 
revolutions in the world will abate the 
amount of their income one jot. Lord 
Hartington went into the House of Com- 
mons when he was twenty-three ; thence 
to St. Petersburg, whither he attended 
Earl Granville, who was then ambassa- 
dor; in process of time, found himself 
vested with a mission of bringing about 
a vote of non-confidence against the 
ministry in Parliament ; did it with 
much skill : made a parliamentary repu- 
tation, interspersing his political labors 
with social enjoyment with the Prince of 
Wales, whose elder he was. and with 
whom he has in his time indulged in 
many a frolic; and when he was of ma- 
ture years stood in the rather unique 
position of being heir to one of the 
noblest of the English duchies, in pos- 
session of a vast income of his own. a 
leader of fashion, and an acknowledged 
leader of the Liberals. Minister of war 
to-dav, he can look back to the age of 



thirty-three, and reflect that he then 
held the same office. He was a civil 
Lord of the Admiralty at thirty ; in fact, 
he was fully up to the level of his ad- 
vantages and improved every one of 
them ; when he could not be in active 
political ministry he was willing to be a 
postmaster-general. He is one of those 
who like to do everything thoroughly. 
If he drives a drag it is faultlessly cor- 
rect in style. lie is a great hunter. 
He loves whist, and he enjoys to the 




JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 
From Photojrraph by London Stereoscopic Co. 

utmost one of those old-fashioned 
parliamentary sittings, such as some- 
times occur over a debate on the 
address, when good sound blows are 
given and taken with perfect temper 
on either side. A stammering and 
rather shy speaker, what he says is 
always telling. 

Some degree of the resentment pri- 
vately cherished against Lord Harting- 
ton by members of the landed aristoc- 
racy, who, while they respect, cannot 
agree with him, is visited openly upon 
new-comers, like Mr. Chamberlain, whole 



594 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



f:i 1 1< •< 1 with English bluntness a parvenu, 
and like Sir Charles Dilke, \\ h<> is consid- 
ered as unreasonably radical. These gen- 
tlemen occasionally receive verbal easti- 
gation from some noble marquis or other 
able aristocratic politician ; but this only 
adds fuel to the flame of their enthusi- 
asm. Sir Charles Dilke is the brother 
of Ashton Dilke, who died some years 
ago, and who was far more advanced in 
radicalism than the present representa- 
tive of the family and owner of the 
'• Athemvum," — the principal literary 
critical journal of London, — lias ever 
presumed to be. Mr. Chamberlain does 
not in bis speeches talk so much of pos- 
sible republicanism as of practical meas- 
ures for reform in legislation ; but in his 
public writings and speeches Sir Charles 
Dilke has clearly shown that he likes re- 
publicanism with a continental flavor. He 
was. even when at the University, thor- 
oughly radical in his ideas. He adored, 
as indeed did every one who met him, 
the Italian patriot, Mazzini. He is 
said to have attempted to convert the 
Prince of Wales to republican opinions. 
He hail that symmetrical education 
which enables all English gentlemen to 
do so much and many things so well. 
To him is due the phrase of "Greater 

Britain," which has been embodied in 
English politics. A man of twenty-live, 
he circled the world and made a brilliant 
book. At twenty-six he was a Liberal 
leader in Parliament, and the old family 
home in Sloane street was the scene of 
many brilliant gatherings of the lights 
of the literary and scientific society of 
Northern Europe. Sir Charles is a 
straightforward politician. Although a 
good Democrat he docs not sympathize 
with the Irish demand for separation, 
doubtless prompted by the growth of the 
Democratic feeling in Ireland as in Eng- 
land ; and there have been threats to 



blow up bis Sloane-street residence with 
dynamite. On the continent he is popu- 
lar, lie has a country-house near 
Toulon, where he goes to get rid of the 
melancholy gathered in the London fogs, 
and it. gives him a certain pleasure to 
be interviewed by radical Frenchmen, 
who attribute to him monstrosities of 
statement which make the hair of the 
aristocratic gentlemen in the House of 
Lords stand upon end with horror when 
they read them. 

There are several gentlemen in the 
House of Commons who form an able 
addition to the little corps of distin- 
guished and wealthy Liberals and Radi- 
cals; men like Mr. Labouchere, of 
large fortune, of consummate journal- 
istic ability, freshness of style, and 
charm of manner, yet with frankness 
born of complete independence, and who 
tell the truth to shame the devil, no 
matter if England be the worse for it. 
Mr. Labouchere is twin member for 
Northampton with Mr. Bradlaugh, and 
has well and firmly stood for bis col- 
league each time that the great, free- 
thinker and free-speaker has forced 
his way in only to be expelled again 
forthwith from the House of Commons, 
which dislikes to receive him. .Air. 
Labouchere goes everywhere. Now he 
nun be found at Marlborough House, 
getting the latest gossip from the Prince 
of Wales, and next he will be heard of 
in his place in the Commons, demanding 
the full withdrawal of the English troops 
from Egypt. He is a kind of guerilla, 
fighting on the side which pleases him 
best, and always anxious for truth, the 
word which be has inscribed as the title 
of his picturesque and sparkling journal. 

Democracy means, among other things, 
a careful investigation into the sources 
of revenue and of expenditure in Eng- 
land ; and during the last ten years the 



El ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



595 



nation has awakened to the fact that 
the landed aristocracy has, during its 
long season of privilege, managed to 
abate or abolish the greater part of taxa- 
tion upon its land, and also to convey 
into its own family circles neatly all the 
important revenues from government 
service. The statistics on this point 
are extremely curious and interesting. 
It is confidently asserted that the House 
of Lords represents 211 families of 
barons, who have 2,492 people, hold- 
ing 4,099 offices, receiving from the 
English nation £31,126.188 annually; 
GOfamiliesof viscounts, with 963 people, 
holding 1,561 offices, and receiving 
£11,241,202 per year; 200 families of 
earls, with 3,391 people, holding 5,963 
offices, with £48,181,202 per annum; 
33 families of marquises, with 626 
persons in 1,252 offices, at £8,305,950 
yearly ; and finally, 28 ducal families, 
with 519 people, holding 1,013 offices, 
at £9,760,090 every year. Thus the 
gigantic total of 10*A millions sterling 
remains in the hands or in the disposi- 
tion and gift of the House of Lords. 
What ducks and drakes the coming De- 
mocracy will make of this money, and 
how quickly it will wrest it from the 
hands of the hereditary House! The 
stinging English statement that the pub- 
lie service is a house of refuge for the 
poor relatives of the aristocracy is 
founded upon absolute fact. These ap- 
pointments, represented in the 13,888 
offices, which the House of Lords in cue 
way and another disposes of, are in the 
army, the navy, the church, the uni- 
versities, the Colonial and Indian civil 
and military administrations, — the es- 
tablished church furnishing some of the 
fattest places. There are hundreds upon 
hundreds of appointments of £10,000, 
£5,000, £3,000, £1,500, and £1,200 
yearly. It is not astonishing that, with 



this superabundance of power and pat- 
ronage in its hands, the hereditary 
house should frown upon the admission 
to the franchise of the two millions of 
voters whose liberation must be ac- 
counted the final triumph of the Demo- 
cratic spirit in Great Britain. In England, 
quite contrary to the case in Ireland, no 
great bitterness of feeling seems to 
enter into the agitation for land reform; 
but the movement is characterized by 
the very greatest determination. The 
race question is of course eliminated. 
The farmer, too, has a kind of pity for 
the gentleman who is stranded finan- 
cially by having left upon his hands the 
farms which can be no longer worked 
to advantage ; and the farmer looks 
with a little .suspicion upon the elevation 
of the agricultural laborer to political 
independence. .Such is the respect for 



rank in England that tb 



is a kind of 



reluctance to take away, or to hint at 
taking away, the broad acres upon which 
the ducal and baronial claims and fortunes 
are founded. There is not, nor ever can 
be, the least possibility of a Jacquerie in 
England. The Democracy is cool and 
long-headed, and understands that it 
must keep itself well in hand to gain its 
victory by votes, not by shouting and 
fighting. To fight were hopeless; to 
demonstrate in noisy crowds is of com- 
paratively little use. In last summer's 
campaign each party ridiculed and de- 
nied the authenticity of the other's 
demonstrations in mass meetings. The 
vote is the tiling, and the Democratic 
voters feel that in time they will lie more 
than a match for aristocracy and plu- 
tocracy combined. 

The statistics of land-ownership, and 
particularly in England and Wales, have 
been very carefully collected by the con- 
tending parties since 1872, when the 
agitation took definite shape. John 



mm; 



EURO I 'E IS STORM AND CALM. 



Stuart Mill and John Bright had made 
many statements as to the monopoly of 
land in the kingdom ; and so a Parlia- 
mentary Commission was established to 
investigate the holdings of rentals, and 
came before the public with the aston- 
ishing; statement that, instead of there 
being few, there were a great many 
owners of land in the three kingdoms; 
in fact, that there were more than 
1,100,000 persons, having a combined 
holding of 72,000,000 acres. They 
took care, however, to exclude such 
parts of certain counties as are included 
in the metropolis of London, which would 
have made a very great difference in 
their aggregate. Furthermore, they had 
reckoned leaseholders as owners, which, 
as a member of Parliament, said at the 
time, was very much like calling a hired 
horse an owned horse. They had also 
tumbled into this curious return of land- 
ownership all the crown property, the 
war-offices and railway property, the 
asylum, almshouses, charity, poor, and 
other trustees; church- wardens, parish 
ami police-officers, colleges, ecclesias- 
tical commissions, and dozens of other 
bodies or persons who could not officially 
lie defined as owners of land. They 
also stated the extent of commons and 
waste lands in such a manner as to 
render their whole return untrustworthy 
and misleading. From careful returns 
made in 1874 it appears that in Eng- 
land ami Wales 12 persons own more 
than 1,0(10,(100 acres; 66 persons, 
1,917,076 acres; loo persons possess 
3,917,641 acres; 280 persons, 5,425,764 
acres, or nearly one-sixth of all the en- 
closed land in the two countries; 523 
persons own one-fifth of all England 
and Wales : 710 own one-fourth of both 
countries ; X74 persons possess 9,267,031 
acres ; and 10,207 persons possess two- 
thirds of the whole of England and 



Wales; 4,900 men own more than half 
England and Wales ; 20 persons own half 
the county of Northumberland, which 
contains 12,200 acres. In Scotland a 
striking instance of land absorption is 
that of the Duke of Sutherland, who 
owns nearly one-eighteenth [tart of the 
whole land. In Ireland, out of the 
whole area of twenty million odd acres, 
12 persons own 1,297,888 acres; 21)2 
persons own one-third of the island ; 744 
own nearly one-half of it ; and two-thirds 
of the land of Ireland is possessed by 
1,942 people. 

Thi' aim of the new democracy is free 
trade in land, the prevention of the ap- 
propriation of common lands by private 
land-owners, very possibly a change in 
the system of tenure, increase of land- 
owners, and the game-laws, the con- 
version of lands now lying idle to the 
supply of food, thus lessening the neces- 
sity for foreign imports, and the bring- 
ing up of the land tax to its old level 
of four shillings in the pound, — a tax 
that was levied by legislation in the 
time of William and Mary, but that 
has been regularly avoided by an in- 
genious system of allotments and re- 
demptions ever since. The democratic 
statisticians reckon that some thirty or 
forty millions might be restored to the 
annual revenue if the tax-evading land 
owners could be made to pay up. The 
redemptions or sales of land tax, at 
eighteen or twenty odd years' purchase, 
according to value, came in at the time 
of Mr. Pitt, who took any means to raise 
money ; and it has been practically main- 
tained ever since by the system of 
quotas. In the south counties of Great 
Britain the hmd-owners have rarely been 
made to pay more than one shilling in 
the pound ; many have had to pay but 
six pence, some only one penny ; and 
some less than a farthing. The general 



EUROPE IN STORM AMD CALM. 



597 



average for land taxation of Great 
Britain was only one and three-fourths 
pence, in the assessments of 1877—78. 
" This," says the author of a powerful 
article on the British Revenue System, 
'•is a pretty account to be given of a tax 
called by act of Parliament one of four 
shillings in the pound on the full annual 
value." In fourteen years of the reign 
of William III., the whole public income 
from all sources was £107,437,540, to 
which the land tax contributed more 
than one-fifth of the total amount. But 
in 1883 the public income from taxes 
and ordinary receipts amounted t<> £87,- 
205,184, to which the land tax con- 
tributed but one-eighty-second part of 
I lie whole. 

Thus the coming struggle to put the 
taxation upon the privileged class, to 
modify, substitute, possibly withdraw, 
many of their privileges, to bring into 
the public service new classes of men not 
representing special families, or branches 
of families, to establish party govern- 
ment rather than class government, — all 



this is meant by the democratic and 
radical revolution in England. There 
is no need to fear bloodshed, or ruin of 
property. The Englishman is eminently 
conservative, and especially with regard 
to the saereduess of property. There 
will be changes of ownership without 
destruction of the things to be owned. 
In 183-' the first Reform Bill was 
thought by the conservatives to have a 
reign of terror behind it; but 1867 came 
slowly to the front and brought no grizzly 
horrors of revolution. The conservative 
country squire might say that the prog- 
ress of these reforms had indirectly 
brought about the dynamite atrocities 
and the revolt across the Irish channel ; 
but few would be willing to grant this. 
Between 18G7 and 1884 a new England 
has been constructed within old England, 
but it is still behind the curtain. It will 
appear in the twinkling of an eye one 
day presently, and then all the world 
will consider its advent natural and 
proper. 



598 



EUROTi: IN STORM AM) CALM. 



CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT. 

Public* and Popular Speakers. — Spurgeon in his Tabernacle. — The Temperance Question. — The Finan- 
cial Reform League. — Facta for Rich and Poor. — Bradlaugh in (he Hall of Science. — Republican* 
Meeting in Trafalgar Square. — Gladstone at a Funeral. — " Oh ! How Dreadful ! "— Public Meetings 
in England. — The Lord Mayor of Loudon. — Banquets at the Mansion House. — The ( iiy Com- 
panies. — " Lord Mayor's Day." — The Procession. 



ALTHOUGH the Radicals are from 
time to time disposed seoffiugly to 
deny that the House of Commons and 
the House of Lords constitute a peo- 
ple's parliament, they are in no wise 
deprived of the most ample opportuni- 
ties for public and even noisy discus- 
sion of .-ill the questions which vitally 
concern Great Britain. The frankness 
and plainness of speech so prevalent 
in Parliament, the indisposition to dis- 
guise unsavory truths by ambiguous 
phrases, are still more apparent in the 
speeches of public orators not in political 
life; and while they do not quite reach 
the virulence sometimes remarked in the 
addresses of politicians in America, yet 
they art 1 extremely plain. We have in 
America heard so much of the inability 
of the English to speak in public freely 
and without embarrassment, that it some- 
what surprises an American residing for 
a short time in London to discover a 
great number of excellent public orators 
outside as well as within the sphere of 
politics. 

Two men who speak directly to the 
public heart, whose spheres of influence 
are widely different, and whose reputa- 
tions have passed far beyond the boun- 
daries of their native land, merit a 
moment of our attention. Spurgeon and 
Bradlaugh are great forces in the metrop- 
olis, forces which are undoubtedly used 
for good. Spurgeon is intensely spirit- 



ual, abounding in homely metaphor, 
yet sometimes mounting to the height of 
genuine eloquence. He sways his tre- 
mendous congregation, made up from the 
lower middle classes of London's shop- 
men, workmen, and women, irresistibly 
whichever way he wills. To the thou- 
sands for whom the higher intellectual 
life is scarcely possible he is an unfail- 
ing fountain of inspiration, and lie draws 
to the huge Tabernacle, as it is called, 
perhaps the oddest collection of strangers, 
from all parts of the world, that, can be 
found in any building used as a church. 
Foreigners go out of curiosity, the 
piously inclined visit, the Tabernacle to 
judge for themselves of Spurgeon's spirit- 
ual force, and hundreds of the Arabs of 
London, — people homeless and almost 
destitute, men and women from the 
slums, — steal into the great galleries as 
if coming to the sanctuary for a refuge 
which they can find nowhere else. Spur- 
geon rarely touches directly on the great 
national topics, but, when he does, his 
touch is linn and vigorous. His denun- 
ciation of a mistaken policy has weight 
which is felt up river at Westminster. 
In him arc none of the tricks ami follies 
found in the delivery of the fashionable 
clergyman. There is no hesitancy, no 
coughing, ami no interpolation of " Ahs " 
and "Ohs." Indeed, all the great 
English speakers enunciate their words 
quite fully and clearly, and with much the 



EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 



599 



same inflection found in American ora- 
tors. 

The Metropolitan Tabernacle, in which 
Spurgeon preaches, is certainly one of 
the curiosities of London. It stands in 
a rather frowzy section of the great city, 
— where rambling streets, ill-kept, are 
lined with low and dingy houses ; and as 
the great congregation of nearly seven 
thousand persons pours out of the Taber- 
nacle, on .Sunday mornings, it is com- 
pelled to pass through a double row of 
degraded men and women, who are wait- 
ing impatiently for the opening of the 
public houses from one to three o'clock. 
The amiable Londoner of the upper 
class, wheu asked to give a good reason 
for the laws regulating the sale of liquor 
on Sunday in the British capital, frankly 
confesses that he knows nothing of it, 
save that it seems planned to promote 
rather than check intemperance. On a 
dull Sunday the London workers and 
the equally large class of people out of 
work rise late, and, instead of bending 
their thoughts on church and chapel (for 
in England the dissenting churches are 
called chapels, to distinguish them from 
the established Episcopal church), pace 
the streets or linger at corners, longing 
for the moment when the Sunday carouse 
may begin. In the mid-day hours the 
gin-palace doors swing widely open, long 
processions of miserably clad people 
hasten to and fro, bearing jugs or bot- 
tles, or crowd around the high counters, 
paying their hard-earned money for that 
which is not bread. At three o'clock 
they are turned out, and the doors are 
banged remorselessly together ; but from 
six o'clock again gin and rum reign 
supreme until a late hour. Throughout 
each quarter of London inhabited by 
the poor classes the public houses have 
monopolized the best street corners. 
They are of uniform type, neatly painted 



outside, divided into stalls with high 
partitions, the fever for class distinc- 
tions prevailing even in these establish- 
ments. To foreigners, nothing can be 
more comfortless than these dens, where 
the new comers constantly crowd out 

those who precede them, and where tile 
language and the atmosphere leave much 
to be desired. The worthy gentlemen 
of the Financial Reform Association — 
a league established nearly forty years 
ago for the advocacy of e< imical gov- 
ernment, just taxation, and perfect free- 
dom of trade — constantly lay before 
the people the ruin wrought on the 
nation by the favors heaped upon the 
publican because he contributes so pow- 
erfully to the revenue. This Reform 
League says a revolution is needed in 
fiscal matters, when the lands of the 
rich pay but £1,000,000 sterling a year 
in land tax, while the pipe and pot of 
the laborer pay £30,000,000 sterling 
per annum in customs and excise duty : 
when the rich man's quota of taxation 
is collected from him cheaply and 
directly, but the workingmen's allot- 
ment is collected by a system that robs 
them of still another £10, 000, 000 ster- 
ling in the process ; when the lands 
which are bequeathed by the rich at 
death pay no probate and little succes- 
sion duty, but the savings of the people 
in the lower and middle classes are taxed 
at the rate of six and one-half millions 
yearly by probate and legacy duties; 
when the remedy of the law and the 
transfer of small land and house prop- 
erties is kept out of the reach of the 
mass of the people by the heavy exactions 
in deed stamps and other legal fees 
and charges ; when sobriety and tem- 
perance are discouraged by a tax of 
£4,500,000 sterling per annum on the 
workman's tea, coffee, and cocoa, and 
the workman lias to pay still other 



GOO EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

millions for the collection of these The stronghold of the redoubtable 
£4,500,000. Bradlaugh, whose name is as familiar as 
The Financial Reform League is not that of the Prince of Wales to London- 
in error in condemning the excise as one ers, is in an unpretentious structure in 
of the most grievous burdens on the Old Street, in the City Road, — another 
people. These excise duties were fust quarter which to American eyes seems 
imposed in England in 166G. They were shabby and somewhat degraded. All 
then solely laid on public drinks, — beer, around it are the humble, although 
eider, spirits, coffee, and tea, — and they cleanly, houses of the commoner sort of 
look the place of a revenue, hitherto mechanics and laborers, liberally inter- 
due from the land in the shape of feudal spersed with the shining gin-palaces 
rents. The amount of the latter revenue above alluded to. Within the Hall of 
in 1660 was £100,000 sterling per year, Science, as Mr. Bradlaugh's secular 
but the amount of the newly imposed church is called, order, however, reigns 
excise was £610,000 sterling per annum, supreme. There is always a great crowd 
Thus, the facility wil h which the poor to hear the distinguished orator and 
can be robbed for the benefit of the rich Republican, who is usually accompanied 
being established, the retention of excise on the platform by Mrs. Besant, whose 
ever since as a great branch of the revenue name has been .-. > I >ng associated with 
has followed. The famous malt duty his work, or by some oilier of the ladies 
was abolished some time ago; but Mr. or gentlemen of the advanced Radical 
Gladstone substituted for it. in 1880, party in the kingdom. Strangers of all 
an excise on beer, which has since shades of opinion are welcome, and now 
brought in an enormous revenue. It and then a sturdy supporter of the Mon- 
seeins to the impartial observer as if the archy gets up in his place and indulges 
English workman drank his beer and in an assault on Bradlaugh, if it, hap- 
spirits in large quantities to no other pens to be one of those nights when that 
end than to aid in supporting the fleets orator attacks what he calls " The House 
and armies of Her Britannic Majesty, of Brunswick." Nothing can exceed 
and the maintenance of her great, body the ingenuity with which Bradlaugh 
of collectors and officials throughout the manages to escape the accusation of dis- 
immense extent of territory over which loyally, while at the same time he plainly 
the English Hag floats liut. the work- condemns Monarchy as a system. To 
man would probably say, as indeed he be rated as •'disloyal" in England is to 
does say, when the subject is brought to be not respectable, and would be pretty 
his attention : — nearly equivalent to social ostracism. 

Bradlaugh is a born controversialist, and 

" 1) — n a man's eyes, e , TT . , , , , 

, . • ot no mean order. lie should have been 
It ever he tries 

To rob a poor man of his beer." :l politician, and would have been far 

more useful to the state in that capacity 

Mr. Spurgeon, from his outlook in the than in his coveted role of simple agitator 

high pulpit of his Tabernacle, sees clearly and social economist. In his oratory, 

what is going on around him, and battles which is nearly always striking, some- 

against the intemperance of the lower times brilliant, often profound, there are 

classes; but the battle is a long and slight traces of an early humble origin — 

difficult one. nameless shibboleths — lapses from pro- 



EUROPE f.V STORM AND CALM. 



001 



priety in speech, which seem to cling 
more closely in England than in America 
to men who have fought their way up 
from the bottom. Bradlaugh never for- 
gets what is due to his congregation, 
which gives him an abiding place, a foot- 
hold, in the great city, the majority of 
whose inhabitants is entirely hostile to 
him. But he knows that out beyond Lon- 



lays down his accusations of what has 
or has not been done in Parliament 
House. Then the crowds start in pro- 
cession for Westminster, but are always 
turned back by the police before they 
reach Parliament, and disperse good- 
humoredly, without more than the usual 
proportion of broken heads, when the 
people are k 'out" in London town. In 




MASS-MEKTIN'IJ ON TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 



don, and outside of the trailing class, 
there is an England which listens to him 
with admiration and respect. 

Now and then he sallies forth on 
some great occasion, regardless of the 
danger, always prominent in London, of 
butting his head against the law. He 
summons thousands of the populace to 
meet him in Trafalgar square at the foot 
of the Nelson monument, and there he 



Paris this would be magnified into the 
proportions of a great riot; the prime 
minister would be asked to "explain : " 
some one would say that a revolution 
was at hand. But it. is thought odd if 
on a Lord Mayor's Day, or on the return 
from the Derby, there lie not some well- 
cracked heads. The blows seem to be 
the result of surplus energy rather than 
a disposition to do injury. I once saw 



602 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



in front of Charing Cross half-a-dozen 
rough young fellows push into the very 
midst of a Lord Mayor's procession, 
striking out right and left, rolling over 
and over in their haste, and coming out 
on the other side all in the best of good 
nature, each having taken the other's 
buffeting as a part of the ceremony. 

Bradlaugb naturally frowns on dis- 
order, and the authorities have no fear 
of his meetings. Half-a-dozen gigantic 
policemen stroll sleepily through the 
crowds, and if a disturbance occurs they 
walk lazily towards it, confident thai it 
will have ceased and that the disturbers 
will lie dispersed by the time the repre- 
sentatives of the law arrive on the scene. 
Bradlaugh at the liar of the House of 
Commons; Bradlaugh in the lobby of 
the House, scuffling with the officials who 
expel him ; Bradlaugh in the courts, 
where he is prosecuted for technical 
irregularities ; Bradlaugh in his own 
vigorous newspaper and in his reported 
lectures, in his books, and on his John- 
street platform, — is a figure which London 
will miss more than it now fancies when 
he has passed away. He adds to the 
piquancy and picturesqueness of public 

life, and, when the new Democracy has 
got far on its road, he will probably grow 
tamer and more dignified, settling into a 
permanent and comfortable place. At 

present he is proud to be called atheist, 
which dread word carries with it his con- 
demnation in every orthodox household 
in London. Democrat, Republican. 
energetic advocate of temperance, he is 
never happy if not in opposition. When 
the police forbade him to speak within 
the limits of Devonport he made his 
address from a boat on the waters of the 
Tamar which was three feet from Dev- 
onport shore, but outside its jurisdic- 
tion; when the mechanics of London 
had built a hall on a, hit of land which 



was suddenly claimed by the landlord 
and adjudged to him by the courts, and 
when this greedy landlord claimed, ac- 
cording to law, the building also, lirad- 
laiigh came up with a hundred men who 
carried the building off piecemeal. 
When Disraeli discovered, in 1868, that 
Bradlaugh's paper, the " National Re- 
former," had never deposited the £800 
of caution money exacted by the law as 
a preventive against blasphemous or 
seditious publications, and when he 
called on Bradlaugh to pay up or cease 
to print, Bradlaugh's only response was 
the insertion, under the heading of the 
journal, of this phrase, "A Paper pub- 
lished in Defiance of the Interdiction of 
the English Government." For this he 
was brought before a jury, but the case 
was dropped. Gladstone, when he 
came into the ministry, took it up and 
prosecuted it, but it was taken by Brail- 
laugh to the Supreme Courts, and there 
the atheistic orator was victorious on 
every point. 

Bradlaugh is very popular in Paris, 
where he is not quite understood, but is 
supposed to be something very radical 
and desperate. He finds a certain sup- 
port among the respectable French Radi- 
cals, for whom his atheism is not so 
shocking as it is to the English Liberals. 
The voters of Northampton, who have 
sent him three times to the House of 
Commons, believe in and admire him. 
His colleague, the witty and wealthy Mi-. 
Labouchere, part owner of the " Daily 
News" and sole proprietor of the 
sprightly " Truth," never loses an 
opportunity in the House of Commons 
to give Bradlaugh a lift, and does it 
with much grace and courtesy. 

To bring out the volcanic force which 
lies at the bottom of Bradlaugh's tem- 
perament, he must be deeply moved by 
an attack, not upon himself, but upon 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



603 



some doctrine dear to him, or some one 
who enunciates theories which he holds 
sacred, lie is the least self-conscious 
of men. If he alludes to himself it is 
only as the representative of others. I 
once heard him in an inspired burst of 
oratory, which, like many others, passed 
away without record, hut it was enough 



street, for when he wants a mighty con- 
gregation he goes to the grassy slopes of 
Hyde Park, or stands amid the sculpt- 
ured lions which lie around the Nelson 
Memorial. 

Mr. Bradlaugh is no longer looked 
upon by the Conservatives, since the ad- 
vent of Mr. Chamberlain, as the chief of 




LORD MAYOR'S DAY. — SAILORS IN PROCESSION. 



to give any speaker lasting fame. He 
was describing the persistence of his 
own purpose, and his faith in the ulti- 
mate results towards which he strove. 
Few men in England, few in Europe, 
could have spoken better than he did 
then; none could have carried in their 
words greater weight of conviction. He 
does not need a larger room than the 
diminutive "Hall of Science," in John 



tenors. His star has perhaps paled a 
little before the lustre of the career of 
this slight, boyish-looking man, who, 
from the platform in Birmingham as 
from his place in Parliament, states the 
most revolutionary propositions in quiet 
and dignified language, adding to them 
that authority which comes from his 
position as a member of the Cabinet 
" He wore," says Mr. Lacey, in his re- 



(504 EUROPE IN STORM AND i'M.M. 

centlv published diary of the two Par- or a distinguished merchant, is found 

liaments, " on the occasion of his lirst next on the paper, and presents his 

appearanqe. in 1877, in the House, not views. Then the resolution is "put," 

spectacles, with tin or brass rims, as and it, is at this point that the unex- 

F<'li\ Hull would inevitably have dune pected speeches happen in and add to 

had his sight been impaired, but an eye- the interest. In the University meetings 

class — positively an eye-glass." Mr. in the spring; at the great assemblies in 

Laeev goes on to inform us that the St. James's Hall, in London, St. George's 

Conservatives had a preconceived notion Hall, in Liverpool, and that famous 

of Mr. Chamberlain's appearance and building where John Bright has for so 

manner; that they had "evolved some many years held forth before his always 

fancy picture," and that they were admiring constituents, in Birmingham, 

greatly surprised " at seeing the genial the audiences are so similar to our own 

member for Birmingham in a coat, and that an American feels at home an g 

even a waistcoat, and on hearing him them. 

speak very good English in a quiet, mi- At the hospitable hoard of the Lord 
demonstrative manner." A Radical with Mayor of London, and in the numerous 
an eye-glass and a bank account appeared corporation buildings in the "city," 
to the Conservative mind an anomaly, so many great speeches are made yearly. 
fixed is the impression that those who The Lord Mayor oecupies a lofty posi- 
ask for land-and-revenue reform are tiou, and one which costs him dearly to 
greedy and needy Socialists in disguise, keep up. But every incumbent of the 
All the Liberals, without exception, are office takes a special pride in spending 
looked upon somewhat askance by the the £8,000 which the city gives him for 
Conservative people in the countn dis- his year, and as much more out of his 
tricts. Mr. Laeev himself tells us that own pocket, while he is lodged at the 
an old lady, reared in an atmosphere Mansion House, in entertaining political, 
of clericalism, on having Gladstone literary, and commercial dignitaries and 
pointed out to her among the celebrities celebrities. He holds the first place 
at the funeral of a distinguished friend, in the city, after the sovereign, and 
whispered, "Oh, how dreadful! I do is the only man in England who can say 
trust he is not coming to create a dis- when he is within his own boundaries 
turbance." that he has precedence of the Prince 
Public meetings in England are al- of Wales. George IV. disputed this 
ways conducted according to certain privilege, but it has never been ques- 
well-establisbed and long-practised rules, tioned since his time. The Lord Mayor 
but are characterized by much the same is annually chosen, by what is called the 
freedom ami energy of expression found Livery, in the last days of September in 
in America. There is none of the cast- each year, and rules a twelvemonth, 
iron formalism which flourishes on the He is ordinarily the senior alderman. 
Continent, and the English plainness of the city proper having twenty-six wards, 
expression flourishes to the fullest ex- each returning an alderman, and sub- 
tent. A meeting always has a resolu- divided into precincts, each of which 
tion laid before it; speeches are then returns a common-council man. The 
made by the mover and the seconder, after Liverymen who choose the Mayor are 
which a noble lord, or a Rt. Rev. bishop, the chief dignitaries of the Trade Com- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



005 



panics, who furnish a voting constitu- 
ency of about ten thousand persons. 
They, with the senior aldermen, choose 
the principal officers of this ancient city 
corporation, the style of which is the 
Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of 
London. Next to the Lord Mayor are 
two sheriffs and a recorder, which latter 



palace, and appears a little out of place 
in the midst of the intense hustle and 
hurry over the smooth pavements in the 
vicinity of Lombard street. :md the Bank. 
On reception nights, and when grand 
banquets are given, the Egyptian Hall 
is open. This lofty room can accommo- 
date lour hundred guests, and the din- 




DINNKR WITH THE LORD MAYOJi. 



functionary officiates in the Lord Mayor's 
Court, held at Guildhall. This recorder 
has an unlimited jurisdiction, both legally 
and equitably, for cases within the city 
boundaries. His court is one of the 
curiosities of London, the modes of pro- 
cedure being derived from the ancient 
customs of the city, in large part. The 
Mansion House, the official residence of 
the Lord Mayor, is a rather gloomy 
structure, built in imitation of an Italian 



ners are veritable feasts. The Lord 
Mayor and Lady Mayoress — the Mayor 
in his civic robes, with his gold chain of 
office- — -personally receive their guests, 
who are then assembled in the ban- 
queting-room in the order of precedence 
so rigidly established in England, lie- 
hind the Lord Mayor is a massive row 
of gold and silver plate, the antique 
treasures of mighty Loudon; and near 
him stands a bearded functionary with a 



606 



ETTRftrii IN 8T0HM AST) f'.U.V. 



stentorian voice, whoso duty it is to cry 
the toasts as they are announced. The 
turtle, the Madeira, and the clarets of 
tlic Mansion House are far-famed, and 
one sees at the table of the greal Mayor 
those traditional figures of aldermen 
which lie seeks elsewhere in vain. 

The riches of certain of the trading 
guilds are almost fabulous. Their yearly 
incomes from ancient investments, for 
which they have no possible use unless 
for charity, are. it is said, squandered in 
costly banquets, and in the accumulation 
of rich stocks of wines ; so that it is not 
strange if the aldermen of London have 
fat paunches and rosy cheeks. There 
are no less than eighty-two of these city 
companies, each one having its hall, and 
all being rated in the order of precedency. 
Guildhall, in King street, Cheapside, 
the town-hall of the city of London, is 
the chief of all the halls, and is rich 
with historic memories. It is in this 
room, where the colossal giants Gog and 
Magog keep watch, where six or seven 
thousand people may he assembled on 
great occasions; and there, for more 
than three hundred and fifty years, the 
inauguration dinners of the Lord Mayors 
of London have taken place. There 
the Sovereign dines on the Lord Mayor's 
Day which succeeds his or her corona- 
tion. There George IV. met with Alex- 
ander of Russia and Frederick William 
III of Prussia, at a great dinner, which 
cost t'i'.'i.OlHl, and at which, it is said, 
gold anil silver plate worth £200,000 
was employed. There have been held 
the successive dinners which have marked 
the progress of the Reform hills since 
1831 ; and when the mighty hall is 
lighted up with the six or seven thousand 
gas-jets, arranged in stars, mottoes, and 
devices, and when at the dinner on 
Lord Mayor's Day, the Mayor and his 
guests are marshalled to the banquet by 



the sound of trumpets, and the twelve 
hundred united guests sit, down to din- 
ner, the spectacle is highly imposing. 
This dinner annually costs £1,500, of 
which the city gives £200, the Lord 
Mayor half, and the two sheriffs the 
other half of the remainder. Mr.Timbs, 
in his " Curiosities of London," tell us 
that, for this colossal feast forty huge 
turtles are slaughtered, ami the servingof 
the dinner requires two hundred servants 
and eight thousand plate changes. 

The most, ancient of the great city 
companies is the mercers, wdiose char- 
ter was granted in 1393. Next come 
the grocers; then the Ash-mongers; 
then the goldsmiths, skinners, and 
bakers, whose charters are earlier, but 
whose rank seems to have been deter- 
mined as less. Then come the saddlers, 
carpenters, weavers, and parish clerks. 
Out of the Mercers' Company have come 
kings, princes, ninety-eight Lord Mayors, 
and the illustrious Whittington and 
Gresham. It, is said that the Fish- 
Mongers' Company purchased the land 
near London Bridge, on which stands 
one of its halls, at the enormous rate of 
£630,000 pin- acre. This company has 
furnished fifty Lord Mayors to London. 
The banqueting-halls, the museums of 
plate and treasure, the festival and pict- 
ure-rooms of these ancient companies 
give, as nothing else can. an idea of the 

accumulation of wealth 1 the splendor 

brought, together on the dingy banks of 
the Thames. 

The !)th of November, generally 
foggy or muddy and rainy, is Lord 
Mayor's Day in London. Then the 
newly elected functionary proceeds from 
the Mansion House westward, along 
Fleet street, and the Strand, past the 
site of old Temple Bar (which was 
demolished a few years ago), on to 
Westminster, where he takes the oath 



EUROPE hV STORM AND CALM. 



607 



before the I3aron of the Exchequer. In hold arc no less than twenty gentlemen, 

recent years the procession has varied The Mansion House is rent free, and the 

much in character, according to the plate and ornaments are worth £30,000 

fancy of the mayor-elect. Sometimes it or £40,000. The Lord Mayor keeps 

is military, allegorical, or historical in three tables, a fine retinue of servants, 

character. But one is sure to see Gog and in the old days, like a very monarch, 




THE THAMES FROM THE TOP OF SAINT PAUL'S. — WESTMINSTER PALACE IN" THE 

DISTANCE. 



and Magog, and a good fight, before the 
procession has passed by the point from 
which he views it. The Mayor and Lady 
Mayoress ride in their state coach, 
followed by the sheriffs in their state 
coaches, and by aldermen. 

The city gives the Lord Mayor his 
coach, but not his horses. He is ex- 
pected to supply the Lady Mayoress with 
her carriages and horses. In his house- 



he kept his own particular fool. He is 
chief butler to the Sovereign at coronation 
feasts. On state occasions, lie wears a 
massive silk robe, richly embroidered ; 
at courts and civic meetings, a violet 
silk robe with fur, and bars of black 
velvet; and when he presides at the 
Criminal Court, or on the bench at the 
Mansion House, a scarlet robe with furs 
and borders of black. As the repre- 



608 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



sentativeof England's commercial power 
:nnl wealth, he relieves the court of 
much expense and trouble, and allows 
those distinguished aristocrats, who are 
removed by several generations from the 
atmosphere of trade, the privilege of 
not coming in contact with those who are 
still carving out their fortunes, or whose 
grandfathers carved them out for them, 
by creating a special court for this latter 
class. 




AKC'llHlslloc MANNING I'lUC ACIIINC TEMrKKANCE. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



(JU9 



CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE. 

'TheCity." — The Daily Pilgrimage to It. — Exact. Limitsofthe City District. — Demolition of Temple 
Bar. — The Griffin. — Fleet Street. — Chaucer's Battle in this Famous Avenue.- The Newspaper 
Region. — The Temple. — The Inns. -The Law Students. — St. Paul's and it-* Neighborhood. — 
The Crypt in St. Paul's. — The Publisher's Haunts. — The Bank.— Lombard Street.— Christ's Hos- 
pital.- The "Times." 



FROM eight to ten o'clock on every 
morning of the week, except Sun- 
day, hundreds of trains and omnibuses 
— trains in subterranean avenues, on the 
street level, and on high viaducts, from 
which one may look clown upon the attic 
windows of acres of houses — -carry the 
commercial and professional classes of 
London into what is called "The City." 
Within this tract is concentrated three- 
fourths of the intellectual and financial 
activity of the largest city in the world. 
From ten o'clock to four the vast avenues 
are crowded with hurrying, anxious folk, 
primly dressed, polite and deferential 
even in their haste, knowing the value 
of a minute and exacting its full worth, 
settling transactions which involve thou- 
sands, and sometimes millions, in inter- 
views that last barely half an hour, and 
exercising influence over dozens of small 
countries scattered up and down the 
mighty seas. The city man is aware 
of his own importance in the world's 
economy, and is gifted with becoming 
dignity. He is hard to get at in the 
first instance, — seems inclined rather to 
repel than demand business, as befits 
one who may take his choice of the best 
enterprises set on foot ; but, once having 
given his attention, he decides and acts 
with the greatest swiftness. 

The " City," so called, is that part of 
London which, in the old days, was 
within the walls, together with what was 



known as " The Liberties," which im- 
mediately surrounded them. "The Lib- 
erties," says Mr. Timbs in his "Curi- 
osities of London," "are encompassed 
by the line of separation, the boundary 
between them and the county of Middle- 
sex, and marked by the Bars, which 
formerly consisted of posts and chains, 
but are now denoted by lofty stone obe- 
lisks, bearing the city arms, which may 
be seen, eastward, in White Chapel, the 
Minories and Bishopsgate street; north- 
ward, in Caswell street, at the end of 
Fair alley, and in St. John's street, and 
westward, at Middle row, Ilolborn ; 
while at the west end of Fleet street, the 
boundary is the stone gate-way called 
Temple Bar." This old stone gate-way is 
gone now, and, had it remained, it would 
have seemed insignificant enough under 
the shadow of the somewhat gloomj 
and ill-arranged palace where London 
has finally placed the numerous tribunals 
which were formerly crowded into small 
and old-fashioned rooms in the neigh- 
borhood of Westminster. Near where 
Temple Bar stood, at the entrance into 
Fleet street from the Strand, is a me- 
morial monument with a griffin sprawl- 
ing on its top, and with bas-reliefs, which 
the populace, urged by some curious 
feeling dillicult to explain, took delight 
in breaking shortly after they were placed 
in position. 

Fleet street, with its thousand ancient 



610 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



souvenirs of historic exhibition and pos- 
sessions, and with its associations with 
Goldsmith and Johnson, is the chief 
rendezvous of journalism in London. 
Then' are the offices of all the great 
newspapers, except the " Times." " The 
Daily Telegraph" and "The Daily 
News " have palatial abodes ; and the 
writers of the articles which move the 
thought of England meet to discuss 
politics and literature in dusty, venerable 
taverns, whose owners are proud of the 
memories which their houses evoke, and 
turn them to excellent account. In 
Wine-office court, just oft" Fleet street, 
is the ••Old Cheshire Cheese," where the 
favored visitor is allowed to sit in a chair 
from which Dr. Johnson thundered forth 
his magniloquent sentences ; and close by 
is the house where Goldsmith lived in 
1761, when Johnson first visited him. 
Johnson's house, in the court named 
after him, from which he used to march 
forth on his stately promenades along 
Fleet street, is also close at hand. The 
house in l.olt court, where he died in 
1771. was burned more than half a 
century ago. Chaucer and .Milton both 
lived at times in Fleet street : and there is 
a pretty story told of Chaucer's once 
having soundly thrashed a Franciscan 
trial- in the celebrated avenue, when he 
was a student of the Inner Temple, and 
being lined two shillings lor the offence. 
The taverns and coffee-houses are usually 
to lie found in dark little passages or 
alley- ways, and one instinctively looks for 
costumes of past ages, and is surprised 
to see the quaint rooms crowded with 

gentlemen sprucely dressed in the latest 

fashion of the West End. Fleet streel 
is almost the only portion of the city in 
which there is a considerable movement 
at night. During the sessions of Parlia- 
ment, or in exciting war times, proces- 
sions of cahs are constantly moving 



between Westminster and the newspaper 
offices ; but by one o'clock in the morn- 
ing nothing is heard save the beating of 
the great presses, deep down in the sub- 
cellars, under the muddy streets. Fleet 
si reel is often called the cradle of steam- 
printing. There Heasley, Woodfall, and 
Taylor, by their joint exertions, finally 
succeeded in doing cylindrical printing. 
This was immediately adopted by the 
■• Times," in 1814. 

At the upper end of Fleet street there 
is a gate-way to the Inner Temple ; and 
no ramble in London is more interesting 
than that through the tortuous lanes and 
little streets, and between the houses in 
which the lawyers and law students of 
the metropolis reside. Out of Fleel 
street leads Chancery lain', filled with 
the offices of barristers and legal print- 
ers. On the west side of this street is 
Lincoln's Inn. In these old courts of 
chambers, which were mainly built in 
the time of James I., was the ancient 
hall in which the Commons of the 
society used to meet for their masks and 
Christmas festivities, when the benchers 
laid aside their dignity and the students 
danced before their judges. The new 
hall and library, — noble buildings of 
tin- Tudor style, — the council-room, are 
all most interesting, and one cannot but 
wonder that so serene and tranquil a 
retreat, like that of some old university, 
has been preserved in the very heart of 
one of the busiest of modern cities. 
The new hall in Lincoln's Inn has a 
vaulted kitchen forty-live feet square 
and twenty-five feet high. Attached to 
it and adjoining are cellars capable of 
containing one hundred pipes of wine; 
whence we may conclude that good 
cheer reigns in Lincoln's Inn. Farther 
away, on the north side of Holborn, is 
Gray's Inn, also a. noted rendezvous of 
the legal fraternity, possessing an oval 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



(.11 



hall, built three hundred years ago, with the successful students. Nevertheless, 
a great oaken roof divided into seven persons may still he called to the bar re- 
bays by Gothic arched ribs. All the in- gardless of the lectures and examinations ; 
mates of these four inns of court — the but, in all cases, keeping Commons by 
two Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's dining in the hall is absolutely necessary. 
Inn — have the exclusive power of prac- These dinners in the various halls are 
Using as advocate or council 
in superior courts. The stu- 
dent who wishes to gain ad- 
mittance to any of these has 
a sharp tight for the privilege ; 
but once admitted he is en- 
titled to the use of the libra- 
ries, "to a seat in the church 
orchapel,and tohave hisname 
set down for Chambers." 
" He is then required to keep 
Commons by dining in the 
hall twelve terms (four terms 
occurring each year), on com- 
mencing which he must de- 
posit with the treasurer £100, 
to be retained with interest, 
until he is called. Hut resident 
members of the universities 
are exempt from this deposit. 
The student must also sign a 
bond, with sureties, for the 
payment of his Commons and 
term fees. In all the inns 
no person can be called unless 
he is above twenty-one years 
of age, and three years' stand- 
ing as a student. A Council 
of Legal Education has been 
established by the four inns 
of court, to superintend the 
subject of the education of 
students for the bar. and. 

by order of this council, law lectures very curious. At five or half-past five 
are given by learned professors at the o'clock in the afternoon the banisters 
four inns, all of which any student and students assemble in their gowns, 
of any of the inns may attend. The and the benchers proceed in procession 
examinations also take place, and to the dais. The steward then strikes 
scholarships, certificates, and other the table three times, grace is said by 
marks of approbation are the rewards of the treasurer or senior bencher present, 




AT THE PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW. 



612 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

and the dinner begins. Each table is Napoleon I. at the Invalides in Paris, 
arranged by messes, and to each mess is In the crypt of St. Paul's stands the 
allowed a bottle of port wine. The state car mi whicli the body of Welling- 
dinner is usually simple, but there are ton was conveyed to tin 1 cathedral at 
many ancient formularies and ccreino- his funeral. At the Chapter House of 
nies, some of which provoke a smile this church, every time a new political 
to-day, like that observed in the Inner party assembles, there is a kind of new 
Temple on the 29th of May. when each clerical parliament, composed of a dean, 
member drinks to the happy restoration four canons, twelve minor canons, six 
of Charles II. in a golden cup of sack. lay figures, and twelve choirists. Here 
At Gray's Inn they occasionally toast the Lord Mayor's chaplain preaches his 
the memory of Queen Elizabeth. Now annual state sermon, and on the anni- 
and then the younger students from versary of the great fire, 1666. In May, 
these vast ranges of buildings called during the anniversary festivals, noble 
'•Courts" hold high wassail in the concerts are given in the church, and 
public houses and queer old taverns on the annual gathering of the charity chil- 
Fleet street, and show that Englishmen dren, eight or ten thousand in number, 
of to-day drink as deeply as Englishmen held in St. Paul's in June, is one of the 
of Dr. Johnson's time. prettiest and most pleasing of English 
The neighborhood of St. Paul's is one public assemblies. Thither go the 
of the most interesting quarters of the judges and law-officers, in long proces- 
city. St. Paul's is the Pantheon of sion, for blessing on their labors before 
England's naval and military heroes, the beginning of the annual sessions, 
ami the burial-place of many of her Back among numerous streets and un- 
greatest painters. In the crypt lies Sir romantic places in the neighborhood of 
Christopher Wren, who built the great St. Paul's are the publishers. One of 
church, anil whose handiwork is visible the most famous streets in which the 
everywhere in the city; Sir Joshua purveyors of literature abound is Pater- 
Reynolds, immortalized by Flaxman's noster Row, so called from the sellers of 
statue as much as by bis own work ; rosaries and the text-writers who lived 
Parry, ( (pie. Lawrence, and Van Dvck ; there in the time of Henry IV. From 
Turner. West, and Milton Archer Shee ; Paternoster Row and its immediate vicin- 
in the middle of the crypt, under an altar itygo out most of the great works which 
tomb, are the remains of the great Nelson, have done so much during the Victorian 
In this crypt, for more than two years, period to ennoble English literature, 
lay the body of the Duke of Welling- The London publishers do not indulge, 
ton. tin- coffin placed upon the top of the like those in Paris, in costly and luxuri- 
sarcophagus which covered that of Nel- ous offices, with tapestries and pictures 
son ; but now the old Duke reposes in a and hrir-o-brfc They do their work in 
porphyry tomb, sculptured out of a business hours, in plain and simply fur- 
single Mock, weighing more thanseventy uished rooms, and reserve their comfort 
tons, and placed upon a massive base- and luxury for the suburban homes, to 
ment of Aberdeen granite, at each coiner which they hasten as soon as four o'clock 
of which is sculptured the head of a sounds from the church-towers of the 
guardian lion. This severely noble city. The man who at one o'clock 
tomb is far more impressive than that of may he found lunching in a modest little 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



613 



rookery in some back alloy, in a dark, 
open stall, where there is no cloth upon 
the table and where napkins are un- 
known, sits down to dinner at seven 
o'clock in his noble country-house, look- 
ing out upon a splendid lawn, and docs 
his evening work in a costly library. 
London is their rendezvous, and nothing 
else. A solicitor will receive you in a 
back office simple as that of a Hebrew 



labor; black care goes home with them, 
and lurks beside the turtle-soup and the 
bottle of old port on their dinner-table. 
In front of the Mansion House, and 
past the Royal Exchange, and down 
Threadneedle street, in the neighbor- 
hood of the First Bank of England, 
whose structures cover more than four 
acres, there is a continual rush of teams, 
carriages, drays inibuses, and other 




SATURDAY NIGHT IN WORKMAN'S QUARTER. 



retail dealer just beginning business ; 
but, if be invites you to bring your 
papers to his house, you will find he 
lives like a merchant prince. Every city 
man sacrifices about two hours daily in 
going to and from his business. When 
the trains leave the city in the afternoon 
they are crowded with men who are 
studying briefs, prospectuses, and memo- 
randa, which they extract from little 
black bags, placed carefully beside them. 
One feels that their going into the city 
has been but the beginning of their clay's 



vehicles of almost every description, 
from early morning until after business 
hours ; and through this moving mass 
hundreds of thousands of pedestrians 
pick their way with the deftness born of 
long practice. Near by is Lombard 
street, so called from the old " Longo- 
baidi," the rich bankers who settled in 
that distrietof London and grouped their 
countrymen around them before the 
time of Edward II. There also were 
the goldsmiths, who lent money on plate 
and jewels, and from the badge of the 



614 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Lombards, or Longobardi, the three 
golden nills of the Medici family, we gel 
our modern pawnbroker's sign. "The 
days have long passed when," as we 
are told in the " Life and Times of Sir 
Thomas Gresham," "all sorts of "old 
and silver vessels were exposed to sale. 
as well as ancient and modern coins, in 
such quantities as must surprise a man 
the first time ho sees and considers 
them." The wealth of the men of Lom- 
bard street does not to-day consist of 
golden chains, like that of Gresham, as 
was found to be the case after his death, 
lint gold and silver laceraen still bad 
their places of business in the street at 
the beginning of this century. For 
more than live and a half centuries this 
celebrated avenue has been devoted to 
finance ; and in the long and narrow 
streets, with their gloomy courts which 
radiate from it, are the business offices of 
some of the most powerful commercial 
houses in the world. The first idea of 

the I don Exchange came from Sir 

Richard Gresham, who proposed to 
Cromwell " to make a place for merchants 
to repair unto in Lombert Strecte." 
Underneath the dust of this avenue are 
the ruins of Roman houses, and many 
Roman remains have been found. They 
are the last lot unearthed, and are sup- 
posed to indicate that they belonged to 
the period when London was burned by 
Boadicea, The value of the ground in 
this neighborhood may be adjudged by 
the following instance, which Mr. Timbs 
gives us in his valuable book on London : 
A piece of ground at the corner of 

I. bard street, formerly the site of 

Spooner & C'o.'s banking house, was let to 
the Agra & Masterman's Bank, for nine 
years, at £66,000 per year. Owing to a 
change in the management of that bank, 
it was next sold to the City Offices Bank, 
at a premium of £70,000 sterling. Later 



on. a building was erected upon it, at a 
cost of nearly £70, odd, the gross rental 
of which is estimated at £22,000, — the 
London and Canada Bank [laying £12,- 
ooo for the ground floor and basement. 
It is not easy to get building sites in the 
centre of the banking world. The Mer- 
cantile and Exchange Hank purchased 
premises in Lombard street for £20,000. 
The directors of the bank then let the 
first floor of the house to the Asiatic 
Banking Corporation for £1,000 per 
year. The amalgamation of the London 
Rank of Scotland with the Mercantile 
and Exchange Rank having made it 
necessary to value the premises in Lom- 
bard street, the directors of the Bank of 
Scotland paid £10,000 to the share- 
holders in the Mercantile and Exchange 
Rank as their proportion of the increased 
value of the premises, which are now 
estimated as worth £40,000. The value 
was thus doubled within a year. 

Every week-day, and at all hours of 
the day, — even later hours than those 
kept by the regular city man, — hosts of 
able people from all corners of the earth 
flock into the city, bearing in their busy, 
ami often aching, brains, schemes which 
they hope to float in the inspiring atmos- 
phere of this commercial centre, and by 
which they hope to enrich themselves. 
Among these waiting and hoping folk 
the Americans are very prominent. 
They are of all types: the breezy, fresh, 
and enthusiastic Western man, who, 
despite the English assertion that gush 
and a confidential air will kill any en- 
terprise offered in the city, behaves 
in unconventional London in the same 
boisterous and buoyant way that he 
would at home ; the sharp, quiet-man- 
lu'iwl financier, who has come determined 
to measure capacities with the magnates 
of Europe's financial head-quarters ; the 
wild-cat speculators, who find persons 



EUROPE IN STORM A.VD CALM. 



615 



resembling them in the London market, 
and who slowly lay their plans for gull- 
ing the public ; and, finally, the large- 
brained but timid inventors, — the men 
with every kind of novelty from per- 
petual motion to a new barbed-wire 
fence, — all learning by bitter experience 
how hard it is to turn the current of 
suspicious capital into their own particu- 
lar channels. The Odysseys of these 
speculative-minded men, amid the rocks 
and waves of London, are often attended 
with pathos, and sometimes terminate in 
tragedy. " Hope deferred maketh the 
heart sick," and as there are at all times 
from six to seven thousand important 
schemes waiting attention, it is not odd 
that the many thousands of less impor- 
tant enterprises are swept aside, forgot- 
ten, or readily dismissed. It is precisely 
the uncertainty, the delightful suspense, 
the dreamy anticipation of success, which 
tempts so many foreign investors to stay 
on and on in Loudon until their credit, 
their courage, and often their health, have 
departed. They arrive fresh with vigor, 
ami will tell you they are well aware of 
all the obstacles, have profited by the 
experience of others, and have come to 
stay. And they do stay, moving from 
the huge and glittering hotels, in which 
they at first installed themselves, into 
the more modest quiet of the West End 
square ; then into cheaper lodgings ; 
again to second-rate taverns; finally, 
into the country, but clinging on with 
perhaps no other capital than a good 
hat and umbrella and their ever-seduc- 
tive address, determined against fate. 
Out of this throng of unsuccessful people 
sometimes leaps to the very height of 
financial victory a man who had seemed 
marked for disaster. Some lucky chance 
has brought him to the front, and all the 
others, seeing the good turn fortune has 
done him, struggle on. using an energy 



and patience which, in more legitimate 
pursuits at home, would have made them 
solid fortunes. 

The Royal Exchange is imposing, and 
is filled with memorials of Sir Thomas 
Gresham, who carried out the project 
which his father had recommended to 
Cromwell, and had his famous crest, a 
grasshopper, placed over the first ex- 
change in Lombard street. Then the 
"Burse," as it was called, was placed 
in C'ornhill, whither, in 1570, came to 
the dedication, " 'midst the ringing of 
bells in every part of the city, the 
Queen's majesty, attended with the 
nobility, front her house in the Strand, 
called Somerset House, and entered the 
city by Temple Bar, through Fleet 
street. Cheap, and so by the north side 
and the Burse, through Threadneedle 
street, to Thomas Gresham's house, in 
Bishopsgate street, where she dined." 
Sir Thomas Gresham died before he 
had half completed his plan for enrich- 
ing the Exchange with statues. This 
building was destroyed in the great fire 
in London, and, oddly enough, the 
founder's statue was the only one which 
did not fall into the flames. The sec- 
ond Exchange was opened at the close 
of the seventeenth century, being built 
by the city and the Mercers' Company. 
It was a noble structure, well studded 
with statues of kings. But this in its 
turn was burned in 1838, and as the fire 
reached the clock-tower at midnight the 
bells were heard chiming the familiar 
air. "There is nae luck about the 
house." The present Exchange, dedi- 
cated by Queen Victoria, in 1844, is 
renowned for its portico, adorned with 
Westmacott's sculpture. On this por- 
tico is the inscription: "The earth is 
the Lord's and the fulness thereof." 
Mr. Henry George, while addressing an 
open-air meeting recently in front of 



616 



EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 



the Mansion House, pointed to this 
inscription on the Royal Exchange and 
s:\id it should read :" The earth is the 
landlord's, and the fulness thereof." 
In this building are Lloyd's subscrip- 
tion-rooms, where meet the noted mer- 
chants, ship-owners, underwriters, in- 
surance, stock, and exchange brokers 
of London. Lloyd was an old coffee- 
house keeper, from whose establish- 
ment at the corner of Abchurch lane, 
Lombard street. Steele used to indite 
his epistles to the " 'l'atlcl'." 

The Lank of England looks like a 
greal fortress, and it is well protected 
externally from attack. At night there 
is a military force on duty, and clerks 
ate also detailed to keep a night-watch. 
There is little danger, however, that 
the masses, whether excited by Mr. 
Henry George or any other agitator, will 
ever attempt an assault upon the ven- 
erable and exalted financial institution. 
It is not far from this centre of com- 
mercial London to the water-side, and 
the great Custom-house, with its majestic 
front, live hundred feet long, with a 
broad esplanade between it and the 
river, and to the lone avenues, literally 
crammed with heavy drays, hearing to 
and fro every conceivable sort of mer- 
chandise, from the ships which crowd the 
docks. Here and there throughout the 
city rises a line building devoted entirely 
to the providing of refreshment. The 
city restaurant-keepers acquire fortunes 
in a very short time. Their custom is 
certain. Yet they court it by bestowing 
upon their customers every possible com- 
fort and luxury. From ten o'clock until 
four these great restaurants and the 
numerous clubs scattered throughout the 
city quarter are overflowing with hun- 
gry people; but after sunset few people 
linger, and by the time the lamps are lit 
in the gorgeous gastronomic establish- 



ments of the West End, the city restau- 
rateur has counted his cash and closed 
for the night. The City is the best 
paved, the cleanliest kept part of the 
metropolis, and contains many of the 
most brilliant shops in London. In 
Cheapside, in the Poultry, in the neigh- 
borhood of the General Post-office, in 
King William and in Cannon streets, 
a stranger may shop to great ad- 
vantage. In Cannon street a frag- 
ment of the London Stone, supposed to 
be the great central mile-stone from 
which the British high roads radiated, 
and to have been placed in its present 
location more than a thousand yearsago, 
is still to be seen. 11 is mentioned as a 
landmark in a list of rents belonging to 
Christ's Church in Canterbury, in the 
time of King Athelstan, who reigned in 
the tenth century. 

One of the noblest charities in the 
city of London is Christ's Hospital, 
which was due to the exertions of the 
good citizens to provide for a large 
homeless population. Henry VIII. as- 
sisted this work by large grants, and 
young King Edward VI. gave the hos- 
pital its name. The hospital was not 
originally, as it is to-day, a school ; but 
at all times its directors rescued young 
children from the streets to shelter, feed, 
and clothe them. For more than three 
hundred years Christ's Hospital has 
been a school, and is proud of its old 
traditions ami its ancient, uniform. 
Many a fashionable mother presents with 
pride her son attired in the long blue 
coal and yellow stockings, and wearing 
the livery girdle which all the children 
received at Christ's Hospital must wear. 
They go bareheaded in all times and 
seasons; and one of these boys, on his 
vacation visit to the Continent, is as 
much followed and stared at as a lion 
or an elephant would be. There are 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



617 



but a few arches and a bit of a cloister 
of the old building remaining. Many 
of the oldest buildings have been re- 
stored. From Newgate street the pub- 
lic can look in upon the great hall, and, 
on any Friday, may get admittance to 
see the children having their supper in 
this hall, the eightor nine hundred buys, 
in quaint costumes, going carefully over 
the various ceremonies which have come 
down In them from the sixteenth century. 
The Charter House, in Aldersgate street, 
is another noble charity, founded by a 
London merchant, where eighty pension- 
ers live together in collegiate style, and 
where, forty poor boys are annually re- 
ceived for free education. This Charier 
House, which has given to the world .Sir 
William Blackstone, Addison, Richard 
Steele, John Wesley, George Grote, and 
Bishop Thirlwall, has an income of 
£29,000 sterling annually. Yet another 
college is that named after Sir Thomas 
Gresham, where lectures are annually 
delivered on different sciences, free of 
any charge to the public. 

Christ's Hospital is filled with memories 
of Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh 
Hunt, all of whom are blue-coat boys. 
It has many ancient privileges, such as 
that of addressing the Sovereign on the 
occasion of his or her coming into the 
City to partake of the hospitalities of 
the corporation. Presentations to this 
school are greatly coveted. The insti- 
tution has five hundred governors, headed 
by the royal family, and many of these 
have the privilege of presenting pupils. 

Not far from Blackfriar's Bridge and 
looming up a conspicuous monument as 
the traveller from west to east enters 
the domains of the City by way of the 
embankment, is the office of " The 
Times," which is now in the hundredth 
year of its existence, and which was 
never more brilliant and prosperous than 



at present. "The Times" is the epit- 
ome of English achievement, day by 
day, and has the utter lack of self-con- 
sciousness and the quiet dignity which 
an- so noticeable in an Englishman ; and 
it also has the abundant confidence and 
the utter inability to look at any subject 
from other than an English point of 
view. In its huge red brick building 
"The Times" sits enthroned a positive 
authority, against which many cavil, but 
none dare rebel. The present office 
stands upon the sight of the old Mon- 
astery of Blackfriars, in Printing House 
Square. Mr. W. Fraser Rae, a noted 
English publicist, has recently given to 
the world a brilliant monogram on the 
centenary of " The Times." in which he 
traces through a hundred years the 
course of the great paper. Perhaps no 
incident in the history of this journal 
is more striking than its exposure of a 
vast conspiracy that had been formed 
for swindling foreign bankers out of 
£1 ,000,000 sterling. ••The Times" was 
quite successful in the unearthing of this 
fraud, and its services to commerce are 
commemorated by a tablet in the Royal 
Exchange. There have been three gen- 
erations of Walters, proprietors and 
conductors of " The Times," which is a 
magnificent property. In the printing 
of this journal, which sometimes com- 
prises sixteen large and well-printed 
pages, a perfected press, invented by 
the third Walter, is used. The main 
features of this are simplicity and com- 
pactness, combined with enormous speed 
in working. A large reel, covered with a 
canvas roll of paper, revolves at the 
one end; at the other end the printed 
sheets issue, folded and printed ready 
for the publisher, at the rate of fifteen 
thousand copies per hour. The paper 
on the reel is four miles long. In less 
than half an hour these four miles of 



618 



El ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



paper are converted into newspapers, the civilized or partly civilized world, 

" Every night." says Mr. Rae, " when constitute one of the most wonderful 

the Walter presses are running in 'The intellectual achievements of modern 

Tinics' office, a quantity of paper weigh- times. >,"<> matter how tremendous the 

ing ten tuns, and representing a roll one expense and effort attendant upon the 

hundred and sixty miles long, is thus getting of telegraphic news, "The 

transformed into newspapers." The Times" never blusters about these 




- :— ?,j.. 



SALVATION" ARMY. 



editor of •• The Times " is no longer a things, hut prints, in its bright, clear 

one-man power, striking terror because type, on its immaculate paper, the news 

of his very mystery. Much of the work of the world. 

of decision is done in council ; but there There are always " causes " to take 
is still an enormous amount of detail, up much of the attention of the papers of 
which falls upon the shoulders of the the great city, and among the latest is 
chief; and it is no secret that Mr. the movement for perpetual religious 
Chenerv, the late editor, who has been excitement known as the " Salvation 
succeeded by the able Mr. Buckle, dieil Army." Tlie military nomenclature of 
of overwork. The telegraphic pages of its machinery masks a worthy scheme 
"The Times," embodying as they fie- for reaching a class that is not touched 
quently do on a M lay morning, by the churches. It is not wisely man- 
lengthy dispatches from every part of aged, but it does much good. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



019 



CHAPTER SEVENTY. 



The Smoke and Dirt of London. — Temperature. — Poor People and Dirty People. — The London 
Season. — What it Is, and What it Means. — The Races. — The Derby. — tioin^ Down to 
Epsom. — The Return. — Goodwood. — Ascot. — The Royal Academy. — John Millais. — Sir 
Frederick Leighton. — Music and .Musicians. 



AT six o'clock on a June morning 
the stranger who takes a walk 
through London can scarcely realize that 
it is the same city, in the sam country, 
which he visited on four o'clock of a 
November afternoon. Before the mil- 
lions of fires are lighted, and the thick, 
black smoke begins to pour out from the 
chimneys, the soft gray of the skies, and 
the grayish-brown of the noble lines of 
buildings, walls, and monuments, and 
the great houses and bouquets of trees 
and evergreen foliage, harmonize per- 
fectly. In this tranquil morning hour 
London would be, if its streets were 
clean, almost as beautiful as Paris. But 
the smoke, meeting the mist, hovers in 
the street, as soon as the thousands of 
founderies, breweries, manufactories of 
all sorts, and the domestic hearths have 
lighted their fires ; and from nine o'clock 
in the morning until late at night Lon- 
don has a climate peculiar to itself. 
"The temperature of the air in the 
metropolis," says Mr. Timbs, " is raised 
by the artificial sources of heat existing 
in no less than two degrees, on the aver- 
age mean, above that in its immediate 
vicinity." All the artificial sources of 
heat, with the exception of the domestic 
fires, continue in full operation through- 
out the summer. 

It would seem as if the excess of the 
London temperature is still greater in 
June than in January, but the fact is 
otherwise. The excess of the city tem- 



perature is greater in winter, and at 
that period seems to belong entirely to 
the nights, which average considerably 
wanner than in the country, while the 
heat of the days, owing, without doubt, 
to the interception of the solar rays by 
the constant fall of smoke, falls, on a 
mean, about one-third of a degree short 
of that in the open plains. "There are 
hundreds of places in London," says 
Mr. Timbs, " into which the wind never 
finds admission ; and even on the wider 
streets there are many through which a 
free current is rarely blown. It is only 
in the night, when combustion, in some 
measure, ceases, and the whole surface 
of the earth is cooled, that the gases 
are gradually removed and the whole 
atmosphere of the city is brought into 
an equality." 

If London could dispense with the 
burning of coal it would be transformed, 
in less than a month, from one of the 
smokiest and dirtiest cities in the world 
into one of the most picturesque and 
beautiful. The mists and fogs which 
visit the metropolis would lend an addi- 
tional picturesqueness to the old and 
mysterious city, but they are mixed with 
sulphurous fumes, which are very un- 
healthy, for many medical authorities 
assert a constant lowering of the physi- 
cal type in London, and question whether 
the London population could be per- 
petuated without a perpetual influx of 
fresh blood from outside England and 



620 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



from other countries. The smoke and clever dramatist and journalist, Mr. 

the coal-dust, the sulphate of ammonia, George Sims, electrified benevolent Lon- 

p reduced in the atmosphere by the burn- don when be showed, in a well-written 

ing of enormous quantities of coal, and pamphlet, how the poor of London live ; 

the sulphurous acid, are at first intensely how i hey are crowded in dens such as 



disagreeable to the stranger. If a window 
be left slightly open, books, writing-paper, 
fine linens, and silks are found soiled 
and smirched with the black particles 
which hover in to do their unpleasant 
work; and a wristband, immaculate at 



exist in no continental city. The instinct 
of decency and cleanliness seems to be 
banished from the souls of these people, 
who live in an atmosphere of unsavory 
odors, and whose methods of thought are 
SO muddled by constant absorption of 



nine o'clock, must be changed at noon, beer and spirits that they do not realize 
One soon discovers why it is that the their own degradation. In addition to 
Londoner is perpet- the very poor there is an adventurous 
uallv washing his class, several hundred thousand strong, 
hands, and that toi- which passes a wretched existence of 
let-rooms are to be expedients and make-shifts, living in 

almost bare, comfortless lodg- 
ings, knowing no warmth or 
^. light save that of the public 
house or the theatre, or 







#2) ?P ' 









THE QUEEN'S CARRIAGE. 



found in every crowded thoroughfare. 
From the difficulty of keeping clean in 
London town probably arises the fashion 
prevalent among the uppi r classes of 
speaking of the poor as dirty people. In 
no other place in the world is a smart, 
even an elegant, exterior so important 
as in London. The papers record with 
surprise the appearance of a well-dressed 
man in the dock of a police or criminal 
court. To be ill-dressed is almost a 
crime. 

The poor people in London are indeed 
dirty people, and they have few facilities 
for the promotion of cleanliness. That 



that of the too rare sunlight during the 
short summer. 

London has its fashionable season, its 
period of social and intellectual, as well as 
chief commercial, activity, in the months 
of March, April, May. June, July, and 
August. The •• season " proper may 
be saiil to begin after Easter, and to 
close punctually with the rising of Par- 
liament, on the 12th of August. In 
February and March publishers are busy 
with new books, the painters are frantic 
with preparations for annual exhibitions, 
horse-racing begins, the university crews 
are briskly at work on the river, finish- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



621 



ing with their annual struggle. But house-keeper is nervous with ambition to 

" town," as all Englishmen rail it, is make money ; and in the great metropo- 

not at the height of its gayety until the lis, with four and a half millions of 

breezy and pleasant days of May. people, a stranger who arrives on a sum- 




TIIE QUEEN CONFERRING THE ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD. 



Then the rich families come in from mer evening has an excellent chance of 



their country retreats. The fashionable 
hotels treble their rates. The gentle- 
men who pay ten guineas for their suite 
of rooms during the spring are asked to 
pay thirty after the first of May or to 
retire. Every landlord and lodging- 



sleeping in the streets, if he has not 
engaged his rooms several days before- 
hand. 

It is not the foreigners, but the Eng- 
lish of the upper and middle classes, 
who spend the money during the season. 



622 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

The British hotel-keeper professes some comfortable and entertaining, and when 

slight disdain for American patronage, the Englishman goes out of doors, it is 

because the American docs not drink for vigorous exercise on horseback, on 

wine. A country squire, a prosperous the river, in the cricket field, or a brisk 

clergyman, with his family, or a rich walk along the suburban streets, or a 

manufacturer, with his half-dozen grown- thirty-mile promenade on the tricycle, 

up daughters, one or two smart sons, which has become almost as prominent 

and his bustling wife, will speDd as much an institution in Loudon as a family 

money at dinner at a London hotel as an carriage. 

American party will dispense in a day. The holidays, festal occasions, politi- 
The well-to-do country people enjoy cal .and sporting anniversaries are im- 
their London season and lavish money portant events in the London season, 
upon it. If they economize it is in the After Easter comes a Bank holiday, 
discreet privacy of their rural home. while business is suspended when the 
One cannot pass through the London Quarter Sessions begin. On the second 
season without heavy expense. The Sunday after Easter the Conservatives 
ancient and rather shabby lodging- celebrate what is called Primrose Day, 
houses in the historic streets on the the anniversary of the death of Lord 
Strand, and in the great squares at the Beaconsfield, in 1881. In May the 
West End, are almost as expensive as Academy exhibition of paintings is 
the mammoth modern hotel. The thea- opened, and on the evening preceding 
tre, the opera, and concert are all dear in it, unless it be a Sunday, a grand din- 
comparison with ordinary prices in Amer- ner is given at Burlington House, at 
ica. A seat at a fashionable theatre, which the president of the Royal Acad- 
w here the play begins :it a quarter before emy presides, ami speeches are expected 
nine o'clock and closes promptly at from the Prime Minister, foreign ambas- 
eleven, costs half a sovereign, or $2.50. sadors. distinguished orators and writers. 
Mowers, fruit, and. in short, everything In May, too. comes the anniversary of 
which partakes of the nature of a the birth of Queen Victoria, — a Rank 
luxury, are dear, even at a central mar- holiday, — when all the commercial world 
kit like Covent Garden. But England enjoys a rest, and the younger class of 
is filled with people who are rich and employes a great frolic. Next in order 
whose fathers were rich before them, arc the Kpsom races, and (he Whitsun- 
and who scarcely appreciate the value of tide holidays. 

money. The luxurious and handsome The Derby, famous the world over, is 

hotels in London. :it the termini of the one of the most (anions and interesting 

great railways, profess to make moderate of the racing-festivals in England, and 

charges ; but to live in them as one lives in brings out the most motley collection of 

an American hotel one must pay nearly people of all classes that can be seen 

double the American charges. London during the year. The great annual 

plucks the strange]- within her gates, meeting, on Epsom Downs, takes place 

whether he comes from outside England just before Whitsuntide, from Tuesday 

or from foreign parts ; but the resident to Friday. Wednesday is the Derby, 

finds it a cheap, healthy, and agreeable Friday is the Oaks, or. as (lie populace 

place to live in. lie learns not to think would call it, " The Honks." If the 

of the weather at all. In-d ■ life is English think it extraordinary that the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



623 



French should always choose a Sunday 
for any grand parliamentary display be- 
fore the beginning of an important de- 
bate, the French think it no less singular 
that the English should adjourn their 
Parliament in order that its members 
may attend a horse-race. Legislation is, 
in fact, invariably adjourned for the 
Derby ; and Sir Wilfred Lawson and 
other reformers spend their breath in 
vain in pointing out the wickedness of 
wasting people's time in attendance 
uiion a trivial sport. The passion for 
horse-flesh is so great in England that 
it infiltrates into conversation and 
metaphor. The slang of the turf is 
often used in political illustration, and 
instances may be mentioned where it has 
been employed in describing the charms 
of an actress or a professional beauty. 
The sailor and the jockey contribute 
thousands of phrases to English con- 
versation. On the Derby day, in the 
afternoon, all business in London is sus- 
pended, except the important business 
of transportation. Thousands upon 
thousands of people have gone down by 
road on drags and coaches, packed witli 
hampers of food and drink, and, long 
before the hour of the races, are ranged 
in rows on the furzy and irregular hill- 
sides, which are thronged with a col- 
lection of mountebanks, gypsies, and 
adventurers of all classes ; and brown- 
faced fortune-tellers, mounted on stilts, 
come to the drags to tell the fortunes of 
the ladies seated there. Young clerks 
from the city have begun their libations 
at an early hour, and soon quarrel and 
fight. A " Welcher," or a betting man 
who cheats, is thrashed within an inch of 
his lite. The enormous grand-stand, 
which can accommodate thousands, 
sends forth a shout of half awe-struck 
pleasure when the arrival of the Prince 
of Wales is announced, and it is not too 



much to say that when the horses are 
led forth upon the turf fifty thousand 
people rush to their heels to admire and 
comment upon their points. The race 
itself is like all horse-races, — interesting 
mainly to those who have risked upon 
the result. The races have been regu- 
larly run at Epsom since the time of 
.lames I. when he lived at Nonsuch 
palace, and was fond of visiting the 
Derbys to see the horses run. In their 
present form the races date from 1730. 
Formerly there were spring and autumn 
meetings, but now there is a spring meet- 
ing in April, lasting only two days, and 
from which the fashionable world holds 
aloof. Then there is the May meeting, 
from the Tuesday to Friday before Whit- 
suntide, unless Easter comes in March, 
when the races take place after the 
Whitsuntide week. Edward, twelfth Earl 
of Derby, established the race known by 
his name, in 1780 ; and in the year pre- 
vious to this he established the '-Oaks," 
so called from one of his country seats. 
The Derby race proper is a one-and-one- 
half-mile contest for three-year-old 
gelds and fillies, and is usually run in 
from two minutes and forty-three seconds 
to two minutes and fifty-two and one- 
half seconds. Thirty years ago Tatter- 
sail's, the great sporting rendezvous in 
Auction Hall for horses in London, was 
crowded at the book-making before the 
Derby day with a miscellaneous collec- 
tion of peers and plebeians ami prize- 
fighters, " butchers, bakers, and candle- 
stick-makers," farmers, soldiers, and 
even ladies, — all anxious to indulge in 
this form of gambling. The owner of a 
Derby winner, on one occasion, had to 
receive £70,000 from the ring at Tatter- 
sail's, and so strict are the regulations 
that on the settling day all this money, 
with the exception of £200 or tr.OI). was 
in the hands of his bankers. Jockeys like 



624 



FA' ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Archer, Fordham, and Wood accumulate 
large fortunes ; and Archer, who heads 
the list of winning jockeys in England 
and France (for lie often rides at the 
races <>n Longchamps, in Paris) , makes 
as much money as the most successful 
of dramatic authors or leading actors. 

During the 
last racing- 
sea sun live 
pro m i 11 e n t 
English gen- 
tlemen, own- 
ers of live 
S t n ds of 
horses, won 
more t Ii a n 
£10,000 each; 
Mr. T. Ham- 
mond winning 
£12,379 ; Mr. 




s-p: 



C 



ON THE ROAD TO EPSOM. 



R. Peek. £11,906; (lie Duke of West- 
minster. £11,769; Mr. Manlon, £11,494 ; 
and Mr. Rothschild, £10,931. 

The return from the Derby is a sight 
that, once seen, is never to lie forgotten. 
Thousands of coaches, drags, light car- 
riages, omnibuses, and country wagons 
stream down |>ast the grand-stand, from 



which the view extends, on one side, to 
Windsor Castle, and on the other to St. 
Paul's Cathedral ; and all the way up to 
London, fifteen miles, along pleasant 
country roads, well dotted with rural inns, 
with furzy hanks, copious forests, country 
valleys, surrounded with handsome shrub- 
bery, — there is a veritable carnival of 
the rudest horse-play and sport. The 
noisy people feel it their duty and their 
privilege to attack quiet people, and as 
two-thirds of the holiday-makers ride 
upon the tops of drags or in open wagons 
a kind of battle goes on. Now and then 
the quiet people are provoked into re- 
taliation by streams of water poured on 
them from squirt-guns, made especially 
for the occasion, and by a shower of 
pocket-flasks, stale biscuits, bits of lob- 
ster-shells, and even champagne bottles. 
Every license that the exhilaration of 
fresh air and an unlimited quantity of 
wine can produce seems permitted, and 
the interference of the police would be 
looked upon as an unheard-of innova- 
tion. The object of the rougher class 
seems to be to ruin the garments and 
spoil the pleasure of the 
gentler number, and in this 
they thoroughly succeed. 
The result is that gentle- 
men who visit the Derby 
clothe themselves for the 
occasion in garments of 
simple gray and in white 
hats, which they count upon 
laying aside as useless 
thereafter. The ladies, 
with their customary tact, dress in sober 
colors, and if the road carnival becomes 
too uproarious they take refuge in the in- 
terior of the coaches. It was once my 
fortune to visit the 1 Derby with a party 
who had in their service a huge, good- 
natured, and neatly dressed American 
negro. This unfortunate servant occu- 



EUROI'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



625 



«*. 



A 








-ft**' 1 !' 






#£.%>. 



■'■t< ... 



■ 






!in^W 




v # 



FOX-IIUN'l'IN(i IN ENGLAND. 



pied a conspicuous place on the front 
of the drag ; but before we had gone 
five miles on our return he was hidden 
under the back seat in the interior, 
whence he hardly dared to emerge after 
he was in the comfortable security 
of the stable at a London hotel. Here 
and there on the road from Epsom up to 



London certain societies post good- 
looking men, who hold up placards for the 
contemplation of the crowd. These 
placards are generally adorned with re- 
ligious mottoes and devices, and on one 
occasion a huge poster displayed these 
words, " "Where will all this end? .In 
hell-lire." 



626 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



There arc numerous races after the 
Epsom during the season; the summer 
meeting at Sandown, the Ascot, to which 
the fashionable world goes in throngs, 
the New Market meeting, and the Good- 
wood meeting, — all these aregreat events 
for society ; and even the Queen has been 
known to attend the races at Ascot on 
the cup day- Perhaps the most brilliant 
assemblage of ladies in the early part of 
the London season is to be found at 
Epsom, on the Oaks day, — the Derby 
being more especially reserved for gentle- 
men. 

The private view days at the Academy 
and the Grosvenor exhibitions bring 
together large gatherings of celebrities. 
In the handsome rooms devoted to the 
Royal Academy in Burlington House 
some seventeen hundred pictures, or 
perhaps half as many as are annually 
displayed at the Paris Salon, are exhib- 
ited. 'Hie characteristics of the English 
painting are too well known to need much 
discussion here. The foreign observer 
looks in vain for the brilliancy of tone 
and the harmony of color to which the 
continental schools of painting have 
accustomed him. lie finds in the solid 
and enduring works of John Millais, 
Alma Tadeina, Mr. Watts, Luke Fildes, 
Mr. I loll, Mr. Herkomer, and Sir Fred- 
crick Leighton, enough talent, even 
genius, to bestow renown upon any 
academy. Sir Frederick Leighton is 
the accomplished and versatile president 
of the Royal Academy. The foreigner 
looks with astonishment upon the great 
mass of dull and flaccid compositions by 
the younger men. It' English art needs 
any informing purpose it is that of sun- 
shine. It wants blue sky and translu- 
cent atmosphere. Now and then a mas- 
ter like Millais can extract a weird 
poetry and charm from the sombre and 
gray qualities of a Scotch landscape, as 



in his noted picture of "Chill October." 

The Academy is tilled with capricious 
painters, who delight in fantastic and 
unnatural subjects, in which they can 
use colors evolved from their own imagi- 
nation rather than copied from anything 
in the visible universe. In portraiture 
the Academy is strong. All the English 
pictures, except the above-mentioned 
portraits, have a strong literary tinge, — 
they tell a story, often striking, some- 
times touching. The English painter is 
not satisfied, like the French, with mere 
contrast of color without coherence, he 
wishes to recite something, to interest 
more in his subject than in his technique. 
The military painters are not very 
numerous for a nation so often at war 
as Great Britain. Neither do the 
painters appear to have profited by the 
picturesque facilities offered in India and 
other dependencies of Great Britain for 
the choice of taking subjects. English 
and Scotch people, it is said, wish Eng- 
lish anil Scotch pictures; and there is no 
doubt they will pay liberally for them. 
Nowhere else in the world does the mod- 
ern painter get more splendid remunera- 
tion than in London. Half-a-dozen of 
the leading artists live in veritable pal- 
aces, which are the outgrowth of their 
own industry, — "industry" is perhaps 
the proper word. John Millais lives in 
a noble mansion, and has a spacious 
.studio, in which he often receives royalty. 
Sir Frederick Leighton inhabits a phe- 
nomenal house, with tessellated pave- 
ments, cool court-yards, cabinets tilled 
with antiquities and costly bric-d,-brac, 
and receives like a prime minister or a 
peer of the realm. George Boughton 
and Alma Tadeina also have line places 
of residence. Tadema's house is like 
his work, arclueological and fascinating. 
In the neighborhood of Holland Park 
there is an artistic colony, with dozens 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



627 



of roomy, noble houses, where painters 
live in a very different style from that 
of the traditional garret to which they 
were supposed to be condemned. Besides 
the annual Academy' exhibition there is 
a line display of the works of living 
painters, in oil and water colors, on 
the 1st of May, at the Grosveuor Gal- 
lery, which was established by Sir Coutts 
Lindsay a few years ago, doubtless to 
give increased facilities for exhibition to 
painters who are crowded out of the 
Academy. Then there is a society of 
painters in water-colors, of which Sir 
John Gilbert is the president ; also the 
institute of painters in water-colors ; the 
Society of British Artists ; and the 
general exhibition of water-colors, which 
has a black-and-white exhibition during 
the season, and other minor displays. 
The English government gives a liberal 
aid to art, and the multiplication of art- 
schools throughout the kingdom is very 
remarkable. All this movement in favor 
of art-schools and art-education sprang 
from the exhibition of 1851, and from 
the impulse given to the study of the 
beautiful by that good and able man, 
the Prince Consort. 

Of good music in Loudon there is no 
lack during " the season." London has no 
opera-houses which can vie in splendor 
with those of Paris and Vienna, but in 
prosperous seasons there are two Italian 
operas and a German opera, conducted 
by Hans Richter, who has a great repu- 



tation in London. The concerts are 
legion. The real impulse to musical 
culture in London is given by the Ger- 
mans. Sir Julius Benedict is deservedly 
popular, and, despite his great age, still 
conducts with vigor and skill. Sir Arthur 
Sullivan, famous because of his light 
operas, is already renowned for solid 
musical accomplishments. Sir George 
Grove and Mr. McKenzie are among the 
chief authorities in the musical world. 
The aristocracy does but little for good 
music. The famous Philharmonic Society, 
which Mendelssohn used to conduct, 
gives concerts at St. James's Hall, begin- 
ning in February, and continuing into 
the season. The Richter conceits are 
also given at St. James's Hall. The 
Philharmonic's audiences are mainly re- 
cruited from the upper ranks of English 
society; the prosperous and cultivated 
Germans and Jews attend the Richter 
series. One of the odd institutions of Lon- 
don is the "Ballad Concert." The popu- 
lace is never tired of the little tooting 
ballad or simple song. Its appetite for 
these modest forms of musical composi- 
tion is enormous. The culture of sacred 
music is very important. There is a 
sacred harmonic society conducted by 
Charles Halle, a German, who has lived 
in London for nearly a half-century ; 
also the Albert Hall Choral Society, con- 
ducted by Mr. Baruaby, and the Bach 
Society, where Mr. Goldsehmidt, the 
husband of Jenny Lind, wields the baton. 



G2S 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE. 

Queen's Weather. —The Coaching Meets.— The Flower Shows. — Simplicity of English Manners.— 
Eccentricity and Excellence. — Foreigners and English Society. — The London Theatre. — Ellen 
Terry. — Wilson Barrett. English Comedj Writers.— In the Parks. — Rotten Row.— Some 
Noble Houses in London. — A Town of Men. — Political Influence. — The Clubs. 



XN the high London season there is 
more out-of-door life, there are more 
lawn and garden parties, more assem- 
blages of fashionable ladies and gentlemen 
at the flower shows of (he great horticul- 
tural societies, than would at fust scent 
possible in a country with a climate so 
variable as that of England. If the cli- 
mate is variable, however, it is also eccen- 
tric ; and now and (hen tin' Londoners 
are gratified with a summer which litis 
the strange charm of the North with the 
sweetness and subtilty of the South. In 
1884, for instance, in the great gar- 
dens attached to tin- South Kensington 
Museum, where a successful " Health 
Exhibition " was held, thousands of 
gentlemen in evening dress paraded 
after dinner on the green lawns .and on 
terraces until the late darkness came, tit. 
half-past nine or ten o'clock, after which 
the grounds were illuminated, and Lon- 
don seemed transformed into Upper 
Italy or Southern France. Air. Punch, 
in his sprightly periodical, once illus- 
trated by means of a picture the reason 
why the British public did not take 
kindlv to c«/es of the Parisian form. 
He showed a crowd of stout dowagers 
and tat fathers of families suddenly sub- 
jected to a Shower of sleet, just as tin ■ V 

had begun to enjoy their coffee in the 
open air. The people of London have a 
phrase, however, which illustrates their 
devotion to the Royal Family and their 
appreciation of a fine day. They say 



when the sun is radiant and there are 
no sudden changes that it is "Queen's 
Weather." Oddly enough, whenever 
Her Gracious Majesty appears in public, 
she is blessed with tranquil skies and 
the absence of down-pour; but other 
members of the Royal Family and other 
English personages tire not so fortunate. 
The orator who goes to address a pub- 
lic meeting without his Macintosh or his 
umbrella is as foolish as if he went with- 
out the subject-matter of his speech. 

The "Coaching Meets "and the "Flow- 
er Shows'' bring together as fine a collec- 
tion of handsome men and pretty women 
as can lie found in any European capi- 
tal. London takes a special pride in its 
(lowers and fruit, which are forced into 
a precocious and somewhat abnormal 
maturity in the great conservatories and 
forcing houses. The prosperous mer- 
chant likes to boast of his orchids, rho- 
dodendrons, and tin infinite variety of 
roses. This is indeed a. more creditable 
fashion than a pronounced extravagance 
in the line of fast, horses, wines, or even 
old china. There is in the English capi- 
tal a very large class devoted to the 
doctrines of Mr. Bunthorne, — a class 
which, while perhaps i( does not accept 
Oscar Wikle : is its apostle, still follows 
pre-Raphaelitism in dress and in the fur- 
nishings of its homes. These people 
stand out in hold relief against the 
sturdy mass of English folk of till 
classes, and there are few if tiny of them 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



(129 



in the upper circles. An English Duke 
is bluff and simple in lii.s ways, delight- 
ing rather, if he boasts at all, to boast 
of his drawings by Raphael, and his 
majestic parks and lakes, than of any 
peculiarities in costume or speech. 
There is even an affectation of simplicity 
on the part of certain noblemen of high 
rank, a kind of deference to the grow- 
ing democratic feeling, but a deference 
which the gentlemen in question would 
doubtless be slow to acknowledge if 
they were accused of it. An ill-natured 
critic has said that an English public is 
captivated by eccentricities quite as 
much as by excellence. This is but 
partly true. Originality in thought and 
expression is always respected by Eng- 
lish society, although it sometimes calls 
forth comments of extreme bluntness, 
aud criticisms which in some circles 
might be called rude. To win the 
respect of the English the foreigner 
must remain himself* and never attempt 
to copy English ways of speech or dress. 
Taking the London season altogether 
it may perhaps be called the most inter- 
esting one in Europe. There is less of 
dramatic, but more of musical, brilliancy 
in the London than in the Paris season. 
There are more circles, each one larger, 
more entertaining, and wealthier, in Lon- 
don than elsewhere. Set down a for- 
eigner in London from any part of the 
world, accord to him a good appearance 
and character, a certain refinement, and 
a few letters of introduction, and if lie 
does not at once find the sort of society 
which he likes he will be very hard to 
please. He will not find the upper 
world at all difficult of access, if he is 
celebrated, amusing, or instructive ; and, 
on the contrary, if he is dull and selfish, 
even though he have millions, he cannot 
enter the charmed sphere. London 
wants the best in people aud in things, 



and recognizes, with great impartiality 
and good-nature, all kinds of merit. 
When it lias once adopted a favorite in 
a certain specialty it hesitates for 
some time before accepting a rival in the 
same line. It appears to think that it 
can be loyal to but one excellence in a 
single department, and if that excellence 
receives the seal of royal praise it is 
guaranteed a permanence in publicfavor 
which nothing short of a great scandal 
or misfortune can destroy. 

The theatre plays an important part 
in the recreations of the London high 
season, and great progress has been 
made in the last few years in the mount- 
ing and production of plays. In scenic 
splendor London is easily the superior 
of Paris to-day, the Parisians having 
given themselves bodily to the spectacle, 
with its inane jokes, and its silly, fairy 
extravagances ; while the ordinary French 
comedy, illustrative of manners and 
morals, requires no scenery beyond that 
of a parlor, a field, or a garden. The 
latest production of the brilliant Du- 
mas, the comedy of " Denise," is in 
four acts, without any change from the 
scenery of the first act. Mr. Irving, 
and, later, Mr. Wilson Barrett, have 
given a sharp influence to the archaeo- 
logical school upon the stage. In their 
productions at the Lyceum and the 
Princess's Theatre of Shakesperian 
plays and melodramas they have ex- 
pended large sums in strict adherence 
to realism, and with the view to great 
splendor. Mr. Irving' is, and will long 
remain, facile princeps in the London 
theatrical world, for lie unites to his 
extraordinary ability as a stage man- 
ager that grain of genius, combined witli 
eccentricity, which captivates the Lon- 
don heart. No one is better fitted than 
Miss Ellen Terry to serve as a piquant 
contrast to his varied moods, and to 



630 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

portray the chief feminine characters in van, furnish all that is necessary. The 
the plays which he has so strongly London critics of the theatre and the 
stamped with his own individuality. Mr. concert are severe and just. Amongthem 
Wilson Barrett is a newer applicant for arc many celebrities, like Mr. Burnand, 
London favor, but has made rapid prog- editor of " Punch " ; Mr. Knight, of the 
ress, and stands almost shoulder to " Athenaeum " ; Mr. Sala, of the " Tele- 
shoulder with living. In three or four graph"; Mr. Yates, of the -World"; 
years he has secured a prominence which Mr. Clement Scott, Mr. Saville Clarke, 
no one dared prophesy for him. The and the industrious Mr. Sims, who both 
production of "Claudiau" and similar writes and criticises plays. If the Lon- 
plays marks a new era at the old and don stage has not yet produced artists 
well known Princess's. Of good come- to take the place of Phelps and Buck- 

dians, men and women, London has no stone, and of Adelaide Neilson, there is 
lack ; many of them are as familiar no reason to believe that it will not one 
to the American as to the English pub- day find them ; and it seems certain that 
lie: .Mr. ami Mis. Kendal, Mr. ami at no remote period England will have 
Mrs. Bancroft, Mr. David James, Mr. a school of contemporary comedy writers 
Arthur Cecil, Mr. Hart Conway, Mr. as good as those of the old days. The 
Charles Wyndham, Mr. Toole, Miss obstacles that block the way at present 
Ellen Terry, Miss Calhoun (an Ameri- arc the indisposition of the public to 
can girl, who has made a fine reputa- listen to the treatment of English social 
tion in London), Mr. Forbes Robert- topics with the frankness with which 
son. Mr. Terriss (who appears to have French comedians can discuss French 
been created expressly to act harmoni- society, and the ease with which a 
ously and impressively with our brilliant French piece can be adapted, remodelled, 
compatriot, Miss Anderson), and others ami anglicized, so as to make a de- 
less known outside of London, yet who lightful work, free from guile, and 
compare favorably with the actors and sparkling with wit. English society is 
actresses of Vienna. With bright fun so different in many small and, at first 
and burlesque London is amply sup- sight, imperceptible, particulars, even 
plied ; and a house in which the orches- from American society, that when Mr. 
tra stalls are occupied by country Branson Howard undertook, in con- 
parsons and their families, or by prim junction with Mr. Albery, the adaptation 
old dowagers from the upper circles of of " The Banker's Daughter " to a Lon- 

soine rich county, will listen wit] t don stage, he was met in almost every 

apparent prudishness to what would scene with the remark from his co- 

scareelv pass unchallenged on the Amer- laborer, "That will not do here; that 

ican stage. What Mr. Irving, Mr. must be changed. Our audiences would 

Barrett, and one or two others have not understand that; the young lady 

done for tin' London theatre is to raise would not do that in London ;" and so on 

it from the level of an amusement to ad infinitum. 

that of an art For those who wish The "Rotten Row" has sometimes 

merely to be amused the la.te Mr. Byron been thought to derive its odd name 

and the very lively and witty Mr. Albery, from Route du Hoi — the King's Way ; 

as well as the perennial Mr. Gilbert, but Mr. Timbs tells us that the name 

the Siamese twin of Sir Arthur Sulli- "rotten" is distinctly to be traced to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



631 



rotteran, to muster. This seems natural 
enough, as Hyde Park was used for a 
muster-ground during the civil war, and 
many great reviews have been held 
there. It must be a very ugly day in- 
deed when " Rotten Row,'' in Hyde 
Park, is not tilled during the high season 
from Ave to seven o'clock, and often in 
the morning hours, with throngs of 
pretty women of all ages from sixteen 
to sixty, escorted by gay young cava- 
liers, or by hale and fat old millionnaires 
and members of Parliament, peers and 
promoters of companies, merchants and 
professional men, taking their ride, 
and exhibiting as pretty a command of 
noble horses as can be seen anywhere 
in the world. From all the aristocratic 
sections, — from Grosveuor and Berke- 
ley squares, from Park lane and May- 
fair, from Belgrave square and St. 
James's square, and even from the grave 
and decorous district westward from 
Portland place, between Oxford street 
and Marylebone road; from Westbourne 
terrace ; from the pretty districts around 
Regent's Park, — hundreds of horsemen 
and equestriennes take their way to the 
park after a late lunch, ride till dinner 
time, and return home only in time to dress 
for that repast. The fashionable day, 
to use an Hibernianism, is in the night. 
The daylight hours are spent in vigor- 
ous recruiting of the energies which have 
been exhausted by " ball and rout " (for 
the English still use the old-fashioned 
" rout"), by receptions and dinner-par- 
ties, crushes in the salons of the am- 
bassadors, or late suppers after the 
theatre. During the " season" most of 
the noble town houses of the aristocracy 
are occupied. Some of these are veri- 
table palaces, worthy of the best days of 
Italy. Apsley House, the old home of 
the Duke of Wellington, at Hyde Park 
Corner, is above a century old, and a 



mob demonstration at the time of the 
first Reform Bill broke its windows, 
whereupon the old Duke put up iron 
shutters, which remained there during 
his lifetime. Apsley House is famous 
for its picture-gallery, in which the 
Waterloo banquet was annually held on 
the 15th of dune, until 1852. It con- 
tains one of the most noted Correggios 
in the world. Stafford House, the town 
residence of the Duke of Sutherland, 
dates from the early part of this century. 
Here the hospitable Duke receives com- 
pany from all parts of the world ; and 
now and then the mansion, which is not 
unlike a Genoese palace, has a grand 
staircase, and is filled with celebrated 
pictures and statues, is thrown open to 
persons who attend a concert or enter- 
tainment in aid of some charity. The 
picture-gallery in Stafford House is 
said to be the most magnificent room 
in London. Murillo, Thorwaldsen, Cor- 
reggio, Lawrence, Ktty, ami Landseer 

have contributed to the decoration of 
this noble house, built for the late Duke 
of York, at whose death the lease was 
sold to the first Duke of Sutherland. 
The Marquis of Westminster has a grand 
mansion, called Grosveuor House, in 
Upper Grosvenor street, and it contains 
Murillos, Titians, Guidos, Rembrandts, 
a miraculous Paul Potter, and a group 
of the best works of Rubens, four of 
which were bought out of a Spanish 
convent for £10,000. The Duke of 
Devonshire has a plain, rather ugly, 
mansion, called after his title, in Picca- 
dilly. It is not strange that a man who 
has so splendid a country home as 
Chatsworth should not care for an expen- 
sive London residence. In Lansdowne 
House, belonging to the Marquis of 
Lansdowne, Priestley made the discov- 
ery of oxygen, and in the picture-gallery 
there hang the portraits of Hogarth, of 



632 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Peg Woffington, and of the painter him- 
self. The Marquis of Hertford, Sir 
Robert Peel, Lionel de Rothschild, the 
Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Dudley, 
the Duke of Norfolk', and many other 
noblemen have fine collections of paint- 
ings, ancient and modern. 

London speedily impresses the stranger 
as a town of men. At first sight the 
foreigner moving about in the great 
metropolis seems to discover in it no 
place in |inlilie for the (rentier half of 
the human race. While in Paris one 
funis ladies almost everywhere that gen- 
tlemen may go, in London they seem to 
lie confined to their homes, to the parks, 
and lo brief excursions from their car- 
riages to shops. At the theatre, and at, 
some of the fashionable restaurants, 
brilliant toilets and pretty faees may lie 
seen ; hnt the exterior of London is not 
sufficiently inviting to draw forth the 
ladies daily and at all hours, as one may 
see them in Paris and Vienna. In Lon- 
don the masculine mind is supreme. 
From time to time there have been salons 
governed by ladies of distinction and 
having a wide influence, as in Paris, hnt 
now they scarcely exist. Mr. Escott 
tells us that it is " because the social 
conditions of English society have 
changed that the salon, in the sense in 
which it is usually spoken of, has almost 
ceased to exist, rather than because no 
opportunities or inducements are to lie 
found to influence polities through so- 
ciety." He also tells us that Lady 
Palmerston, who died in 1868, has had 
no successor. Lord Palmerston was in- 
debted for most of his influence and 
popularity to the social tacl of his wife 
and to her salon. " Lady Palmerston," 
says Mr. Escott, " received not only 
at night, hnt in the day, and till her in- 
vitation cards were written with her own 
hand. By consummate skill she pre- 



served for her assemblies the seal of 
distinction, and every one who was in- 
vited to them regarded the invitation as 
an honor, although he was not single in 
the enjoyment of it." There was no 
resort in London so interesting to the 
man of the world, or so useful to the 
politician. Ministers went there to ascer- 
tain the true current of public and polite 
opinion. Mr. Escott goes on to tell us 
that " more than one great lady has tried 
to fill the place left vacant by Lady 
Palmerston," but that she has uniformly 
failed, because her invitations were in 
the hands of, and were issued by, secre- 
taries, whips, and clerks. He adds that 
the great leaders of the two chief politi- 
cal parties in the state cannot and will 
not study the art of social entertain- 
ment, and that dinners and receptions 
are given as matters of necessity and not 
of choice. 

A considerable political influence is 
doubtless wielded by the mistresses of 
many country-houses, who enjoy good 
position and large fortune, and who can 
invite to their homes large categories of 
celebrities every year. A lady who lives 
for six months in a palatial home only 
two or three miles from the metropolis, 
and who assembles about her. the best 
minds of the times, sometimes takes 
pleasure in giving these minds an im- 
pulse and watching the result of that 
impulse, during the four or five months 
of the high season, when the political 
and intellectual activity of London is at 
its best. Mr. Escott says that English 
society has been greatly modified since 
the Reform Hill of 1832, and that it at 
present comprises, closely blended to- 
gether, the aristocracy, the democracy, 
and the plutocracy. He thinks the 
aristocratic principle has been .strength- 
ened anil extended in its operation by 
the plutocracy, but the antagonism 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



633 



between wealth and birth has long been 
disappearing. Yet the homage paid by 
society in England to the aristocratic 
principle is genuine. In clubs the blend- 
ing of aristocracy and plutocracy con- 
stantly goes on, although the plutocrat 
often has to submit to extreme rudeness 
on the part of the aristocratic gentlemen 
whose society he covets and courts. 
Many a newly enriched Englishman 
makes himself permanently unhappy by 
forcing his way into a club the other 
members of which owe their wealth to 
their parents, and are beginning to 
assume that haughtiness which appears 
to accompany remoteness from trade in 
Great Britain. " To belong to a club," 
remarks Mr. Escott, " does not neces- 
sarily guarantee a personal acquaintance 
with any one of the members." "In some 
clubs where a less rigid system of eti- 
quette exists it is not thought irregular 
for one member to address another of 
whom he knows nothing if they happen 
to occupy contiguous chairs in the smok- 
ing-room. In such matters as these, and 
in many others, every London club of 
importance has special features of its 
own." Clubs, he thinks, are useful as a 
connecting link between society and 
statesmanship. The Liberal clubs are 
more comprehensive and homogeneous 
than the Conservative clubs. The Carl- 
ton, the Conservative head-quarters, is 
"a purely political and social institu- 
tion — the accepted rendezvous and 
head-quarters of the accredited repre- 
sentatives of a party. The Reform Club 
lacks political uniformity among its mem- 
bers, and a pervading consciousness of a 
political purpose." This English view 
of the two great representative and op- 
posing English clubs must, I think, have 
special interest for us. The passion for 
exclusiveness, so foreign to the Ameri- 
can character, so prominent in the Eng- 



lish, is equally pronounced in Liberals 
and Conservatives. " Club-land " — Pall 
Mall, St. James' street, Albemarle 
street, Hanover square — is a curious 
district. The club structures are truly 
palatial, imposing — models of comfort 
within. Hundreds of men may be seen 
at eleven o'clock in the morning, loung- 
ing :il the windows, looking at the muddy 
streets and dull houses, apparently think- 
ing of nothing and doing nothing. These 
gentlemen are faultlessly dressed, have a 
languid air, and a Frenchman would 
accuse them of being troubled with 
spleen. The truth is that most of these 
gentlemen are active enough in their 
special and peculiar directions, social, 
political, or even commercial. The daily 
lounge at the club is a part of the " good 
form " which, is so requisite to the Lon- 
doner of the upper classes. In the Re- 
form and the Carlton, and at Brooks, 
nearly all the political celebrities of Eng- 
land may be seen some time during the 
season. If a foreign visitor could stand 
in Pall Mall for twelve hours, and have 
pointed out to him by some one familiar 
with London faces the gentlemen who 
go in and out of the clubs, he would, be- 
fore two o'clock in the morning, have 
seen two-thirds of the leading English- 
men. The clubs of the Army and 
Navy, of the Athenaeum, the Travellers', 
the United Service, the Union, Ox- 
ford and Cambridge, the Oriental, the 
Junior Carlton are thronged every day 
during the eight or nine months of the 
year with the wittiest, brightest, the 
most powerful, and the bravest. So long 
as these clubs maintain their present posi- 
tion, the salon with ladies in command 
is not likely to reappear. Eastward, 
and in the Strand, and in Covent Gar- 
den are the literary, artistic, and theat- 
rical chilis; and the G arrick Club house, 
in Covent Garden, and the Savage, in the 



634 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Savoy, are familiar to all travelled Amer- 
icans. In one or two club organizations 
the rather unwonted experiment of bring- 
ing ladies and gentlemen together lias 
been encouraged, but has met with small 




ROBERT BROWNING. 

success. London has clulis for people 
interested in mountain explorations, in 
sporting and coaching : for amateur artists 
and collectors of art : for merchants and 
bankers; for officers in the Easf India 
service; for gentlemen devoted to the 
noble art of pigeon-shooting : polo clubs 
in great numbers; clubs for improving 
the breed of dogs ; clubs for the officers 



of the Six Services ; clubs of the Church 
of England; clubs for yacht-owners; 
clubs for the promotion of canoeing ; for 
the cultivation of chess; diplomatic 
clubs; fat-cattle clubs, and clubs for 
whist ; as well as clulis politi- 
cal, literary, artistic, and 
theatrical. There are Shake- 
speare, " New Shakspere," 
Plato, and Goethe societies; 
and lately, societies for the 
study of even contemporary 
poets, as Browning, which 
often draw upon themselves 
considerable ridicule by their 
enthusiasm. The Browning 
society is active in study of the 
great poet to whose fame it has 
devoted its efforts. Of course 
Mr. Browning, a man of ex- 
ceptionally robust and serious 
sense, though most kindly and 
unassuming in social contact, 
has nothing to do with the cu- 
rious association which assumes 
bis name. The yacht clubs, 
with their club-houses at 
('owes, Southsea, Queenstown, Har- 
wich. Oban, Rothesay, Southampton, 
Kyde, and Greenhithe on the Thames, 
nearly all are presided over by aristo- 
cratic commodores, the Prince of Wales, 
Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Connaught, 
Lord Richard Grosvenor, Prince Edward 
of Saxe Weimar, ami others, all paying 
special attention to this sort of sport. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



635 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO. 



The Strand. — A Historic Avenue. — The City and Country Types. — English Love for Nature. — The 
Farmer and his Troubles. — Rural Beauty in Warwickshire and Derbyshire. — The Shakespeare 
Festival in 1879. — Stratford. — Birmingham, the " Toy Shop of Europe." 



"ATTOWIIERE does the pulse of Lon- 
-L> don beat more feverishly than in 
the "Strand," — the long and crowded 
avenue which leads from Charing Cross 
to the site of the ancient Temple Bar. 
Here all classes of English society meet 
and jostle as nowhere else within the 
limits of three-quarters of a mile every 
day, and especially for an hour or two 
after dinner. Here, too, vice flaunts its 
dirty wretchedness as it dares not do 
in New York or Paris. London will not 
have its social irregularities classified or 
licensed, and gives them full liberty in 
certain quarters. On the evening of a 
great national holiday the spectacle in 
the Strand, and in many streets leading 
from it, is often shocking. Almost every 
foot of the historic thoroughfare (which 
got its name from being at the brink of the 
Thames) has its interest. In North- 
umberland Court Nelson lodged, and 
Ben Jonson lived when a boy. In 
Craven street Benjamin Franklin long- 
resided. In York House, now replaced 
by a shop in the Strand, Lord Bacon 
was born. In Buckingham street lived 
old Samuel Pepys. At the Adelphi 
Lady Jane Grey was married. At 
Coutts Bank Queen Victoria keeps her 
private account. In Cecil street Con- 
greve invented the rocket. In Fountain 
Court Blake the painter died. At No. 
132 Strand stood the old Drake's Head 
Coffee-house, of which Dr. Johnson was 
so fond. In Arundel street is the 
Arundel Club, whose members sit up all 



night to discuss grave questions, and are 
known as the latest club men in London. 
In Norfolk street lived William Penn. 
Dr. Johnson and Boswell often took 
supper at the Whittington Club, still in 
existence. In Exeter street lived the 
bookseller from whom Johnson and his 
pupil Garrick borrowed £o on their joint 
note when they first came up to London ; 
and at a wigmaker's, in Maiden Lane, 
Voltaire lived during most of his three 
years' stay in England. It was the 
flood of reminiscences and the proces- 
sion of ghostly figures from the roman- 
tic past that made Charles Lamb, 
as he quaintly tells us, " often shed tears 
for fulness of joy at sight of so much 
life in the Strand." 

Half the gentlemen whom one meets 
on Regent street or in Piccadilly 
have what we should call in Amer- 
ica a "country air." There is in 
their dress and in their manner a name- 
less something which betrays the fact 
that, they spend the greater part of their 
time outside the walls of a large city. 
Put them on horseback in the park and 
they appear more at ease than in the 
crowded and fashionable thoroughfares. 
Nine out of ten of them much prefer the 
easy and luxurious comfort of their 
secluded homes, buried in the depths of 
blossoming gardens, and surrounded by 
blooming hedges in summer, and still 
keeping in winter something of the ver- 
durous richness for which the rainy 
island is famous, rather than the hurry 



636 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



r i ii*l smoke of the metropolis. To the 
tenacity with which the Englishman in 
comfortable circumstances clings to his 
country or suburban home, and refuses 
id be ranged and numbered as a constant 
dweller in the city, may be ascribed the 
enduring individuality so marked in 
England. In truth, the great cities 
throughout the islands might almost he 
regarded as blots upon the exquisite 
landscapes. There caii lie few more 
startling transitions than that from the 
sylvan tranquillity of the country round 
about Chatsworth to the smudge and 
prosaic gloom of Birmingham ; or the 
arrival in Liverpool after a day's wan- 
derings through the quaint streets in 
ancient Chester, or the journey from 
Warwickshire by a swift train into Lon- 
don. Louis Blanc used to say that, in 
France, there was li an abyss between the 
city and the country. " Surely there is 
also a sharp separation and difference in 
England between town and country. 
The wealthy Englishman delights in 
rusticity. lie apes none of the foreign 
distaste for green meadows and for robust 
exercises. Ninety-nine Englishmen out 
of one hundred feel a thrill when par- 
ticipating in the vigorous sports of the 
country-side : the fox hunt, with its 
brutal pursuit of the wily but fleet enemy 
of the fanner; the leaping of fences 
and water-courses ; the heavy fall ; the 
assemblage over the sherry bottle before 
and after the ride, and the discussion 
after dinner of the day's outing. The 
blissful glow which follows a complete 
use of bodily strength all day in the 
open air is thought finer by many an 
Englishman than the Italian's ecstatic de- 
light at the opera, or the Oriental's semi- 
swoon in the rapture induced by perfect 
climate and lack of aggressive nerves. 

Everywhere in the country one finds 
noble houses, line lawns, beautifully kept 



gardens, greenhouses and fruit orchards ; 
and one sees healthy and placid people 
quietly enjoying an unambitious and 
pleasant existence, — not a sellish one, 
hut one lilled with hospitality, and of en 
graced by refined thought and expression 
of it. The passion for hunting helter- 
skelter over fields, without much regard 
to whom they belong, has received grave 
checks both in England and Ireland 
since the land agitation has begun. Mr. 
Anthony Trollope has told us no little 
about it in the pretty story of " The 
American Senator." and the daily press 
has sufficiently enlightened us as to the 
peril to Irish aristocrats who try to follow 
the hounds and sometimes find them- 
selves facing an infuriated Hibernian 
mob. Going down from London to 
Portsmouth, one day in midsummer, I 
observed that all my fellow-travellers in 
the compartment looked out of the win- 
dow with great eagerness, and presently 
I discovered they were noting the 
game ; that whenever a grouse appeared, 
or a bare scudded away to shelter, they 
found an amount of pleasure in the 
spectacle which it was quite out of my 
power to share. These people live close 
to Nature, finding a charm in the con- 
trast of Nature's vvildness in one region 
with her complete subjugation to and 
marriage with art in another close beside 
it. The era of small farms, minute sub- 
divisions of tilled land. — which would 
do away with the great " plantations," 
as they are called, and with the unculti- 
vated places where one who can pay for 
the privilege may hunt as frequently as 
primitive man did, — would he looked 
upon as an unfortunate period by hun- 
dreds of thousands of Englishmen. The 
arrival of the peasant proprietor on the 
scene would he thought to take away its 
chief attraction Yet that advent is near 
at hand. In many a country a rich land- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



637 



owner finds his tenant-farmers giving up open 1 > v the aristocrat, ami by 
in disgust under the pressure of foivign discovers that he is heir to the 
agricultural competition, bad seasons, and ties in presence of which the ai 
poor harvests. The gentleman owner 
discovers that he must let land lie fallow 
and the agricultural laborer is driven 
by sheer distress to think of creating 
an independent position. Tenant- 
tanners, where they are not disposed to 
give up, are becoming more exacting. 
I roubles rise out of the very soil to 
cluster about the once happy and thor- 



-and-by 
difflcul- 
isto rat 




STOPPING THE HINTING. 



oughly independent landed proprietor, had lost his courage. Yet land is the 

The great aristocrats make concessions thing most coveted bv men of newly 

in the hope of tiding over the temporary acquired wealth in England, and will be 

difficulties, incomes are diminished, and so for many a lone' year to come. The 

people shift their investments from land '■ Statesman's Year Book" of 1884 shows 

in England to land in Dakota or Egypt, that while the cultivated area in the 

The plutocrat pops into the place left kingdom has increased by nearly ten 



638 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



thousand acres since 1881, the area un- 
der all kinds of crops has decreased by 
forty thousand acres. 

In London one gets the idea that Eng- 
land is perplexed with a thousand difficul- 
ties, — annoyed by innumerable anxie- 
ties. The atmosphere is one of unrest. 
The talk' is of a military expedition to 
some remote country, the haps ami 
mishaps of commerce, the phases of the 
•• Eastern Question," the consolidation 
of the Colonial Empire, the future of 
Egypt, the advance of Russia, the com- 
petition of America, and the discontent 
of Ireland. But it is easy to get out 
of this atmosphere of uncertainty and 
ambition into a serencr England, where 
the present in nowise disturbs the repose 
of the past and the beauty of its ac- 
cumulated memorials. However much 
London may lie convulsed with stormy 
discussions which seem to involve the 
future of the whole British Empire, the 
peasants and the middle classes one or 
two hundred miles away from the capi- 
tal are but little interested by these 
debates. In the pleasant country towns 
things go on in the same old dreamy 
and tranquil way in which they have 
been progressing for hundreds of years. 
The great land-owner is secure in his 
castle, and appears unconscious of the 
fiery utterances of Mr. Chamberlain. 
The " Squire " is not in the slightest 
tear of approaching revolution, and the 
peasantry seem scarcely to have heard 
of the great changes supposed to be im- 
pending. There is little doubt that they 
all know that a silent transformation is 
beginning; but they make little allusion 

to il. 

The rural beauty of England is so 
great that the Englishman is excusable 
for the extreme pride which he takes 
in it, and for his enthusiasm in the de- 
scription of it. In no English novel or 



essay will there lie found much sighing 
after the soft South, with its semi-tropi- 
cal warmth and profusion of flowers. 
The Northerner rejoices in the rngged- 
ness of his hills, his stormy shores, his 
mysterious mists and fogs, his quaint 
rocks and inlets. Midland people boast 
of their ereat parks and noble pastures, 
their splendid castles and well-kept 
farms ; and the Southerners, of the grassy 
downs, and sheltered nooks where even 
exotic shrubs prosper, and where in 
summer there is a luxuriance of vegeta- 
tion and blossom worthy of the Medi- 
terranean shores. If one wishes to get 
an adequate notion of the supreme con- 
tent of the Englishman with his island 
home let him attack its advantages and 
belittle its excellences. He will soon 
find sturdy responses to all his strictures 
and criticisms. Both the English and 
French are fond of comparing every- 
thing they see abroad with something at 
home, and of making comparisons advan- 
tageous to their own possessions. 

A curious feature of the country dis- 
tricts in England is often remarked, par- 
ticularly by American travellers. Al- 
though it is said that Great Britain is 
intensely populated the country does 
not appear to be so thickly settled as in 
the older portions of the United States. 
Thousands of acres are given up to'' plan- 
tations " of young trees. ( >ne may travel 
miles without meeting a human being or 
without seeing a farm. The roads, ex- 
cepting in the vicinity of the great 
manufacturing towns, are uever crowded. 
Driving or walking through Warwick- 
shire or Derbyshire one does not meet at 
every turn, as in France, Belgium, and 
other continental countries, peasants 
going to and coming from market, or 
working by the roadside, or bands of 
strollers. One is often tempted to stop 
and inquire where the people have gone. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



639 



The ancient towns seem unlikely to be 
awakened from their immemorial sleep. 
The birth-place of Shakespeare is as 
quiet as it was three hundred years 
ago. 

In Warwickshire, in Derbyshire, and 
in the Lake Region, the rural beauty of 
England is manifest in its perfection. 
Here are no mighty glens, no lofty 
mountains, no enormous lakes or majes- 
tic streams ; but, although everything is 
on a modest scale, it forms a harmo- 
nious picture which is absolutely enchant- 
ing. Stratford, with its quaint streets, 
its sleepy church among the noble trees, 
its flowery lanes bordered by com- 
fortable cottages; Warwick, with its 
ancient hospital and its noble castle ; 
(harlecote, where Sir Thomas Lucy, 
whom Shakespeare lampooned as " Jus- 
tice Shallow," built a rambling hall in 
Queen Elizabeth's reign ; Hampton Lucy 
Luddington, in whose church Shake- 
speare is said to have been married ; 
Coventry, with its numerous spires, its 
legends and its embowered streets — 
all these in midsummer are surpassingly 
beautiful. To go from London to Bir- 
mingham by the old highway, the travel 
on which is said to have contributed 
to the up-building of Stratford before 
Shakespeare's birth in that town had 
made it a place of pilgrimage, takes 
one through the exquisite Arden dis- 
trict, where the hedges, woods and cop- 
pices, the gentle hills, the beautiful valleys, 
the " mooted granges " of which Tenny- 
son speaks, the winding streams and wild 
glens, offer a perpetual feast to the eyes. 

Stratford itself is familiar to all the 
world, and I therefore shall uot attempt 
to describe it. The Shakespeare house, 
where " Nature nursed her darling boy," 
has somewhat the aspect of a museum, 
and the temptation to meditate within 
its walls is lessened by the business- 



like air with which the custodians exact 
sixpence for access to the birth-room, 
and sixpence to the museum. At the 
tercentenary Shakespeare anniversary 
and festival, held at Stratford in 1879, 
there was a great gathering of Shake- 
spearian scholars and commentators, and 
of the lovers of poetry and the drama, 
to witness the dedication of the Memo- 
rial Theatre, which now stands in a. pleas- 
ant garden on the banks of the river. 
This simple and unpretentious festival, 
which lasted for several days, seemed to 
awaken but small enthusiasm among the 
country people in the neighborhood, 
some of whom would perhaps have been 
puzzled to tell who Shakespeare was. 
But no monument can be so appropri- 
ate as this stately pile of Elizabethan 
architecture — this theatre, with museum, 
library, and picture-gallery, attached. 
A company of London comedians per- 
formed the comedy of " Much Ado About 
Nothing." Actors and actresses, in the 
intervals of their labor, joined in pretty 
excursions in the evergreen byways and 
the verdurous fields. Perhaps sonic clay 
there will lie founded a school of acting, 
the influence of which will do much to 
improve the public taste for Shakespeare 
and his works. The theatre is but a 
little distance from the village church, and 
above the tomb in this church is the old 
monument which represents Shakespeare 
writing upon a cushion, with an entabla- 
ture bearing his coat-of-arms above the 
niche in which his image appears. 

The famous Inns at Stratford are small 
and quaint. The "Bed Horse" has 
been immortalized by Washington Irv- 
ing, and the Shakespeare Hotel has its 
rooms adorned with paintings illustrating 
the chief scenes in the great poet's com- 
edies and tragedies. The waiters in this 
unique hostelry have long been ac- 
customed to designate each room by the 



640 



EUROPE IN STORM A XI) CALM. 



name of the play from which its painting 
is taken, and in the morning, before the 
guests have emerged, one hears the 
servants calling out: "Hamlet wants 
his boots; Ophelia wants liis hot water; 
Julius ( !sesar wants his brandy and wafer ; 
Coriolanus wishes his breakfast sent 
up at once." Throughout Warwickshire 
the common people have a curious flavor 
in their speech, a dry humor, and odd 
forms of expression, which it is perhaps 
not presumptuous to characterize as 
Shakespearian, [n drawing his peasantry 
the poet simply put his immortal wit and 
his pungent philosophy into the homely 
phrase which he heard every day around 
him; and a great contemporary novelist, 
in following this illustrious example, 
shows that the men of England ean 
talk to-day as picturesquely as they did 
three centuries ago. 

In Birmingham one steps out of the 
domain of history and souvenir, and 
conies down to the prosaic present. 
Birmingham has no older history than 
that of many of the towns of New 
England. It took no part in the 
politics of the nation before the be- 
ginning of the present century, except, 
when Charles 1. and his Parliament 
were at war. Then Birmingham was 
zealous in the cause of the " Bound 
Heads." and even seized the Royal 
plate which King Charles left when pass- 
ing through the town from Salisbury to 
Loudon. Birmingham was punished for 
this audacious act by Prince Rupert's 
plundering expedition on the following 
year. It seems odd to reflect that Bir- 
mingham had no representation in Par- 
liament until after the passage of the 
Reform Bill of 1832, — a triumph for 
which the Political Union had worked 
vigorously. Not until after the repre- 
sentation of ••The People's Act." in 
1866, did Birmingham get its third 



member. Old Hatton, in the eighteenth 
century, made a prophecy concerning the 
future grandeur of industrial Birming- 
ham. He said: "We have only seen 
her in infancy, comparatively small in 
her size, homely in her person, and "loss 

in her dress, — her ornaments mostly of 
iron from her own forge; lint now her 
growth will he amazing, her expansion 
rapid, perhaps not to he paralleled in 
history. She will add to her iron orna- 
ments the lustre of every metal that 
the whole earth can produce, with all 
their illustrious race of compounds, 
heightened by fancy and garnished 
with jewels. She will draw from 
the fossil and vegetable kingdoms; 
press the ocean for her shell, skin and 
coral. She will also tax the animals 
for horn, hone, and ivory ; and she will 
decorate the whole with the touches of 
her pencil." 

Birmingham has done all this, even 
more. To the far Orient she sends or- 
naments of every description ; to Prussia, 
to India, and to America, she exports 
brass and iron, steel and silver, and 
bronze and gold. She enrages the 
French by making their "Articles de 
Paris;" she makes copper coins for half- 
a-dozen governments.. I lei' silver and 
her electro-plating, her brass foundries, 
her chemical works, her guns, swords, 
pistols, jewelry and trinkets, her lamps, 
her pins, her ornamental lilass, — these 
are scattered over the world. " The 
Toyshop of Europe" is a proper name 
for Birmingham. She applies the same 
energy and patience to the fabrication 
of a pin that she does to the construc- 
tion of an hydraulic jack big enough 
to launch the Great Eastern, or raise the 
Cleopatra Needle to its pedestal on the 
Thames embankment. Her public build- 
ings and parks, her statues, her non- 
conformist churches; her memorials of 



EUROI'K IN STORM AND CALM. 



MX 



Peel and Priestly, Watt and Boulton, 
Murdock and Eglington ; her halls, from 
which have 
gone forth such 
splendid utter- 
ances in favor 
of Liberalism, 
— are all worthy 
of her wealth 
and the taste 
of her citizens. 
The varied in- 
dustry, how- 
ever, has left 
its stain on the 
town, which, 
like Manchester 
and Liverpool, 
is dingy, cold, 
and a trifle re- 
pellant in ap- 
pearance. 

Hawthorne 
states that in 
Derbyshire is 

to be found the most exquisite scenery he 
ever beheld. Thither George Eliot went 
for the scenery and her characters for 




GEORGE ELIOT. 



" Adam Bede." Rowsley, and the 
ancient Peacock Inn ; the old seats 
of the Dukes 
of Rutland ; 
stately Chats- 
worth, with its 
long halls filled 
with drawings 
by Raphael, 
and with its 
costly gardens, 
conservatories, 
orchid houses ; 
Matlock, Buck- 
stone, Bickwcll 
and Words- 
worth, II a rd - 
wick Hall and 
Bolsover Cas- 
tle, — stand in 
the midst of 
romantic val- 
leys, walled in 
by rocky and 
foliage - clad 
crags, tilled with grottos, nooks, charm- 
ing streams, and well-kept forests. 



«42 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE. 

The Lake Country. — The Home of Poets and Essayists. — Scotland. — Glasgow, its Commerce and its 
Antiquities. — The (neat Northern Seaport. — Edinburgh and its Memorials. — The Home of 
Burns. 



f|"MlE " Lake Country " of England 
-*- has for us a double interest be- 
cause of the indefinable charm asso- 
ciated with its richly clad hills, its pretty 
expanses of water, and its rich valleys, 
.•mil because the district was once the 
home of Wordsworth, De Quincey, 
Southey, Arnold, Harriet Martineau, and 
Mrs. Hemans. There are in till this 
district no mountains which rise above 
the height of four thousand feet, no 
lakes which we should account large; 
hut hike and valley, and forests and 
country roads, are all in the most ex- 
quisite setting. Here and there, on the 
"Fells" and "Sears." as the\ are 
called, there are bits of wild scenery 
approaching the grand. One should 
enter this district by Grange, after cross- 
ing what Wordsworth called " the majes- 
tic barrier of the Lancaster sands," and 
which annually demands the lives of 
many uncautious travellers; and after 
an excursion to old Furness Abbey and 
to Ulverstone, one may set off through 
the crumbling villages and sheltered 
roads to Windermere and Coniston, near 
which latter lake John Ruskin has a 
country-seat. Thence one may go to 
Ambleside, where a day or two at the 
old "Salutation" tavern will be found 
a perfect rest. This pretty country is 
dotted with mansions and picturesque 
cottages. At Elleray stood the old 
home of Professor Wilson (Christopher 
North). Close by Ambleside is the ivy- 
shrouded house or " The Knoll," where 



Miss Martineau lived for many years. 
Not far away is Dr. Arnold's old house, 
where the great Rugby master used to 
come in vacation time 1 to recruit from 
his arduous duties. In the vale of Gras- 
mere Mrs. Hemans wrote some of her 
most sentimental verse. De Quincey and 
Wordsworth both lived for short periods 
in Grasmere village, and there in the 
bumble church-yard is the grave of 
Wordsworth. 

It is but a short walk from Amble- 
side to Rydal Mount, the favorite home 
of the poet. — a charming cottage hid- 
den under ivy and rose-trees, the very 
place for contemplation and the cultiva- 
tion of the muse. Professor Wilson 
used to say there was " uot such another 
splendid view in all England as can be 
had from the eminences along the road 
from Ambleside. The views of Winder- 
mere from this route are indeed delight- 
ful. The islands lie clustered together; 
the lakes seem like a grand tranquil river 
bending around a point. Bold or 
gentle promontories," adds Professor 
Wilson, " break all the banks into fre- 
quent bays, seldom without a cottage, 
or cottages, embowered in trees, and 
the whole landscape is of a sylvan kind; 
parts of it are so studded with woods 
that you see only here and there a wreath 
of smoke, but no houses, and could al- 
most believe that you were gazing on 
the primeval forests." 

From Ambleside to Keswick the route 
is charming, and in holiday time is 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



643 



thronged with excursionists from London. 
At Keswick is the old home of Southey, 
— Greta Hall, — on a small hill, close by 
a pretty river, on the road to Cocker- 
month. Lake Derwentwater, with its 
picturesque islands, 'with its silvery ex- 
panses, within an amphitheatre of rocky 
but not high mountains, broken into 
fantastic shapes, heaped and splintered 
with little precipices, with shores swelling 
into woody eminences — is the gem of 
this region. Near it is the resounding 
cascade, Lodore, about which Southey 
wrote his astonishing verses, intended 
to represent the babble of the waters, 
for the amusement of his children. 
Near by also are the mountains of 
Ilelvellyn and Skiddaw. 

Scotland has for us a romantic in- 
terest which nothing can abate, although 
long years have passed since the " en- 
chanter of the north " aroused the cu- 
riosity of the world concerning the 
legends and the history of the great 
northward promontory, with its moun- 
tains, morasses, and waste lands jutting 
out into the Northern sea. Scotland 
does not impress one as a sterile country, 
aud yet three-fourths of its surface are 
unproductive agriculturally- Scarcely 
more than five millions of acres are 
under cultivation on the main land and 
the numerous islands. But the little 
population of hardly more than four 
millions of people is one of the most 
prosperous and interesting in Europe. 
Glasgow is to-day the second city in the 
United Kingdom, larger, but perhaps 
not wealthier, than Liverpool, and is one 
of the great ocean termini of the world. 
Approaching Glasgow by night, through 
the picturesque upland country which 
lies between Keswick, Penrith, and 
Carlisle, and crossing the debatable 
ground where for centuries the borderers 
waged merciless war upon each other, 



the strange land which has produced so 
in any great men, — the land where Carlyle 
was born, aud where he lies buried, — one 
sees the landscape lighted up by hun- 
dreds of weird flames, the skies aglow ; 
and many a stranger, taking his first 
walk in Glasgow city, inquires of the 
amused passers-by where the great con- 
flagration is in progress. By day the 
flaming chimneys and the little moun- 
tains of coal refuse do not look so 
interesting. Glasgow has its beauties, 
however, — its broad and solid commer- 
cial avenues, lined with stately stone 
buildings, its shops, which \ie in splen- 
dor and importance with those of London 
and Dublin. The great wharves along 
the Broomielaw are packed with goods 
of every description ; little steamers on 
the Upper, and great steamers on the 
Lower, Clyde, seem almost innumerable. 
Down river the shipbuilding yards are, 
even in dull and panicky times, crowded 
with thousands of operatives, who toil 
upon the iron and steel monsters, which 
plough the seas throughout the civilized 
world. One feels that here is a great 
outlet like Loudon, Antwerp, or Mar- 
seilles. Here the pulse of commerce 
beats strongly, albeit not feverishly. 

There is a sturdy independence of the 
metropolis in Glasgow, as indeed through- 
out Scotland. The names of celebrated 
English authorities in science and in 
literature, of English poets and painters, 
are not so often heard here as those of 
the Edinburgh school. Scotland is not 
England, although it is now an integral 
part of Great Britain. It is an individual 
country, with a profound originality, with 
its old customs and methods of thought 
but little trenched upon by political union 
with the South. One-third of its popula- 
tion is packed into eight large manufact- 
uring cities: Glasgow with 770,000, 
Edinburgh with 23G,000, Dundee with 



(VI I EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 

143,000, Aberdeen with 105,000, Green- the law to execute the decree. From 

ock, the port of Glasgow, with 66,000, many n point of vantage among the vast 

Leith, the port of Edinburgh, with 59,000, marble monuments in the Necropolis 

Paisley with 55,000, and Perth with 28,- one can look out over Glasgow, with its 

000. The total town and village popu- thousands of chimneys, along the seeni- 

lation is two-thirds of the whole, — very ingly endless lines of masts on the Clyde, 

small encouragement for the farmer; yet and over the hills of Lanark and Argyll, 

the wild hill country, stretching away from above which hangs the vaporous blue or 

the outskirts of Glasgow to Cape Wrath the peculiar gray so noticeable in .Scottish 

and the far Hebrides, contributes largely scenery. Glasgow is faithful to the 

t<> the wealth of the busy city; poms memory of the great " Scotch Wizard ; " 

into it its flocks and herds, and the prod- and in the centre of George's square 

nee of its lakes and inlets, and takes rises a monument of Sir Walter, with a 

back merchandise brought from every group of statues illustrating the different 

porl of the world. In the most seem- characters which sprang from his teem- 

ingly inaccessible i k in the Highlands ing brain clustered about the foot of the 

you may find evidence of frequent inter- monument. Westward, in modern Glas- 

course with the outer world. gow, is the great University, opened 

On the hill at the top of the famous half a generation ago. Glasgow is filled 

"High Street" stands the old Gothic with students, — hundred s of painstaking 

cathedral, with its large aisles, broken by young men who come from the hills and 

short transepts, its dozen bays exactly the shores of the inland lakes ami rivers 

alike, and its uniform elere-story windows, to carve out solid careers in the face 

Nothing in all England is more beautiful of poverty and difficulty, nowhere 

than the crypt of the cathedral, with its so stern and so persistent as in this 

sixty-five beautiful pillars, surmounted strange, barren land, which yet produces 

by delicately carved capitals and grace- so much wealth, intellectual and material. 

ful early English arches, with the light As in certain quarters of London one 

streaming in through the lancet windows, seems to go band in hand with Dickens, 

Curious, too, is the old church-yard, and to meet in the different localities 

paved with gravestones, and the Necrop- visited the characters which never had 

olis, perched high on an eminence beyond existence save in his fiery imagination, 

the cathedral, not unlike the fantastic so in Glasgow and Edinburgh one is 

Odd Fellows' cemetery in San Francisco, constantly reminded of Sir Walter Scott 

or like some ancient Turkish cemetery, and his creations. The Cross, the Gal- 

Here are the monuments of celebrated lowgate, the Salt Market, the old corner 

men like John Knox, the Reformer, and of Trongate and High streets, where 

of Dr. Win. Black ; and within the cathe- stood the prison into which " Hob Roy" 

dral is the tomb of Edward Irving. This was thrust in Glasgow, and the Grass 

old cathedral, which braved the fury of the market. Castle Dill, the Cowgate, St. 

Reformation, was so loved by the city Giles's Church, Arthur's Seat. Canuon- 

nestlingat its feet, that, when the Pres- gate, Holyrood, and most of all, Mel- 

byterian ministers had prevailed on the rose, in and about Edinburgh, recall 

magistrates in the sixteenth century to to mind those enchanting days when one 

have it destroyed, the guilds of the city was first introduced to Walter Scott's 

arose in arms and dared the officers of world. The Scotch do not hesitate to 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



G4. r ) 



call Edinburgh the finest city in the 
kingdom, and Mr. Baddeley tells us that 
in no city, unless it be Bath, " has Art 
so successfully turned to account the 
peculiar advantages vouchsafed to her 
by nature. In both cities the archi- 
tects, whether designedly or not, seem 
to have gone to work thoroughly in har- 
mony with the physical lines laid down 
for them, and their success is unques- 
tionable. While the smooth green slopes 
and woody meadows, forming the girdle 
of the ' Queen of the West,' called 
forth a regular style of architecture 
which should not displease the eye by 
any startling discord, the rugged inequali- 
ties and sudden transition from smiling 
plain to bare and frowning rock, which 
mark the site of the ' Modern Athens,' 
seem to demand a corresponding incon- 
gruity in their artificial treatment. 
Edinburgh is a city of contrasts, bold 
and striking." 

The sense of contrast is heightened 
when one comes directly by swift ex- 
press train from Glasgow to Edinburgh. 
Unaccustomed to picturesqueness in the 
great majority of British towns, tin' 
stranger is startled and delighted at the 
exquisite scene presented to him as he 
looks from hill to hill over the town and 
the rugged castles, the noble monuments, 
and the line public edifices. New Edin- 
burgh harmonizes well enough with the 
character of ancient Edinburgh, and this 
result, so rarely accomplished when an- 
cient cities have modern quarters added 
to them, has not been achieved without 
much study and care. This new quarter 
was not in existence a century ago. and 
the magistrates of the city, in order to 
promote its creation, offered a premium 
of £20 to the first builder of a house in 
it. Now it is a great district of fine 
streets, squares, and monuments 

Prince's street, with its evergreen plots, 



its gardens, its deep dell, out of which 
arise the black crags of the Castle, is a 
splendid avenue. At its east end is 
Calton Hill, and above it Waterloo 
Place, where stands a rather audacious 
imitation of the Parthenon, called " The 
National Monument." A little beyond 
are the Nelson's monument and the 
Observatory; also the monuments to 
Dugald Stewart and to Professor Play- 
fair. Northward lies Leith and the 
Forth; eastward, Portobello, one of 
the sea-side resorts of Edinburgh ; and 
close at hand is Arthur's Seat. On the 
south side of the street, and not far 
from the handsome Waverlv station, is 
the beautiful gothic monument to Sir 
Walter Scott, with a statue of him 
underneath the airy arches. In the 
niches, as in the Glasgow memorial, are 
characters from the works of the great 
poet, and novelist. Scotland has bor- 
rowed boldly from the Greek architec- 
ture in the construction of its National 
Gallery, and its museums. In Pahner- 
ston Place stands a fine Gothic Cathe- 
dral, — St. Mary's, — founded by two 
ladies, who spent £100,000 upon the 
edifice. Eastward, in Melville and 
George streets, are many memorials 
ami bronze statues, the Albert Memo- 
rial, with the Prince Consort on horse- 
back, and the Melville Monument, — 
an imitation of the Trajan Column. 

The great feature of Edinburgh is the 
Castle, which may be reached from the 
new town across the valley of th" Prin- 
ces Street Gardens. — once the basin of 
the Nor Loch, in which offenders against 
the laws were ducked, — and so along 
by the Waverlv Bridge, or the " Mound," 
as it is called, on which stands the 
National Gallery. The Castle is entered 
through a portcullis gate under the Old 
State Prison, whence two luckless 
Argylls, in the history of Scotland, have 



646 



EUROI'K IX STORM AND CALM. 



been taken forth to execution, — one 
for his loyalty to Charles II., and the 
other for his allegiance to .Monmouth. 
Those rather antiquated hits of furni- 
ture, — the Regalia of Scotland, — have 
;i room to themselves, where they have 
reposed since they were unearthed two 
generations ago by a search-party, 
headed by Sir Walter Scott himself. 
They had been hidden away in the times 
of the Stuarts, in a fortress on the coast 
at Kincardine, lest their exposure to view 
should awaken feelings hostile to the 
treaty of Union with England. Queen 
Mary's room. St. Margaret's Chapel, 
and the enclosure in which stands the 
ancient cannon, the origin of whose 
inune of Mons Meg is a matter of such 
grave dispute, are the other chief features 
of the Castle. The outlook over Edin- 
burgh and tin' Frith of Forth and the 
hills of Fife beyond is fascinating. On 
Castle Hill, the old house of the fust 
Duke of Gordon, the General Assembly 
room of the Church of Scotland, where 
John Knox met the first Assembly in 
1560; the Free Church Assembly Hall ; 
the (I rass Market, where hundreds of 
Covenanters perished for their religion, 
and where the Porteous riots took place 
in 1736; Grey Friars' Church, with the 
tombs of the Covenanters ; the university 
and museum with their splendid natural 
history collections ; Cowgate, James's 
court, where Johnson was received by 
Boswell on his tour to the Western 
highlands, and where Hume wrote part 
of his history of England; the Long- 
market and High street, with St. (iilcs's 
Church : the old city Cross, the Tolbooth, 
or '-The Heart of Midlothian ;" Parlia- 
ment square, with its equestrian statue 
of Charles II. and the humble stone on 
which appear the letters and figures 
"I. K., 1572," supposed to lie the site 
of John Knox's grave; Parliament 



House, with its noble roofs of carved 
oak, and its superb library; the Tron 
Church, where stood the weighing-beam 
to which the keepers of false weights 
were nailed by the ears; the high, fan- 
tastic, narrow house in which John Knox 
lived from 1559 to the time of his death ; 
Moray House, from the balcony of 
which Mary Stuart and Lord Lome 
looked down upon the Marquis of Mont- 
rose as he was led to execution ; the 
Canongate church-yard, where lie buried 
Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, and Dr. 
Adam Ferguson ; Queensberry House 
and the old White Horse Inn ; and 
last, and of most importance, the beauti- 
ful and original Holyrood Abbey and 
Palace, — ■ these are wonders and treas- 
ures such as few other towns in Great 
Britain can boast of, grouped together 
by accident as well as if the grouping 
had been in obedience to some harmo- 
nious, preconceived design. In Holy- 
rood Lord Darnley's rooms and Queen 
Mary's apartments are still shown, and 
at the entrance to the audience chamber 
a little dark stain upon the floor is pointed 
out as the blood of the unfortunate 
Rizzio. 

From Glasgow and from Edinburgh 
the chief excursions are not, as might 
be supposed in a country so devoted to 
manufacturing and to the special pursuit 
of wealth, to coal mines, or great metal- 
lurgic establishments, but to the homes 
and graves of poets and romancers. The 
brief and pleasant ride from Glasgow 
takes one through interesting old towns 
like Paisley, where Christopher North 
was born ; like Irvine, where Robert 
Bruce surrendered to the English army, 
and where the poet Montgomery first 
saw the light ; past Troon, the great 
summer resort of the Ayrshires, near by 
the frowning ruins of Diindowning Castle, 
and brings one to Ayr, on the pretty sea- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



647 



coast at the month of the river of the was married to Jean Armour, and where 
same name. Here, on this picturesque his plough turned up the mouse's nest; 
country side, everything is tilled with and farther away, near Dumfries, is 
memories of the poet whose lyric genius Kllisland farm, where Burns wrote Tain 
lifted him into immortality- Here one 
may wander along the Doon, visit the 
Burns monument, in which may still lie 
seen the Bible which Burns gave to "High- 
land Mary," note the quaint statues of 
Tarn O'Shanter and Souter Johnnie, in a 
grotto, peep in at the Aukl Alloway 
Kirk, the woodwork of which has nearly 
all been carried off by the carving tour- 




1 " r ' : .^ ffiMmfJ^i 



DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS. 



ists, and enter the rude cottage in which O'Shanter and the ode "To Mary in 

the poet was born. Straying through Heaven." Thousands of pilgrims an- 

the woods and fields from Mauchline to nually visit the humble house in Dmu- 

Montgomerie, one comes upon the pretty fries, where Burns lived when he was 

house where " Highland Mary" lived as exciseman, where lie died, and where, in 

a dairy-maid, and ••Poosie Nansie's " the vault beneath the mausoleum in St. 

cottage, where the "Jolly Beggars" Michael's church-yard, the poet and his 

met : the farm at Mossgiel, where Burns wife repose. 



648 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR. 

Scotland and Ireland. — The Scotch Highlands. — Scenes of Scott's Stories and Burns s rooms. — 
Balmoral. — Over to Belfast. — The Irish Land League. — Imprisonment of Parnell and his Parti- 
sans. — The Crimes Act and its Causes. — A Land League Mass Meeting. — The Wild and Savage 
Peasantry. 



IN the Scotch Highlands the " Globe 
Trotter," who is familiar with stately 
mountains, with yawning precipices, and 
noble sea views, from India to Canada, 
is often tempted to stop and inquire of 
himself whether he would really be inter- 
ested in the Scottish uplands and hills 
if it were not for their sturdy charm. 
Loch Lomond, with its guardian moun- 
tains ; Loch Katrine, Stronaehlaehar, 
Tarbet, Callendar, Oban, the Caledonian 
Canal, Inverness, the lands of Ross and 
Sutherland, the Isle of Lewis, with 
pretty Stornoway ; the Isle of Skye, the 
Chain of Highlands, Staffa and lona ; 
the Crinan canal, threading its way 
through the moist green pastures, — these 
places arc till celebrated; but without 
the enthusiastic celebration of them by 
writers and poets native to the soil they 
would have remained in comfortable ob- 
scurity, enjoyed only by the shepherd, 
the fisher, and the bold hunter on the 
steep mountain sides. A certain inde- 
finable attraction seems to exhale from 
Scotch scenery, even in the dispiriting 
environment of the mists which come so 
frequently and stay so long. Out of the 
great gray clouds come dashing little 
showers, which seem to have a kind of 
malice, and drench the traveller to the 
skin before he can reach shelter. In 
these rains and mists, the lochs, with 
their deep mountain walls, disappear as 
if by magic. The holiday tourist, whose 
time is limited, bemoans his sad fate 



when he crosses Loch Lomond without 
seeing the peaks and crags of which he 
litis heard so much, and concerning which 
he litis formed such tremendous expec- 
tations. In the Trossachs (the bristly 
country) when the sun shines brightly 
through the oak copses, among the sil- 
very gray birches, and when it gilds the 
purple crags and the rich carpets of 
green grass, there is plenty of excuse 
for the wildest enthusiasm. The color 
charms of Scotland are mild as com- 
pared witli those of Switzerland and 
Italy, hut to the dweller under the gray 
and rainy skies of England they seem 
surpassing!}' beautiful. Clasgow, which 
is by all reports one of the thirstiest 
towns in the three kingdoms, and which 
decs not always content itself with water, 
litis made Loch Katrine, which is thirty- 
four miles from the city limits, its chief 
reservoir. For the building of the aque- 
duct from the lake to the city a sum of 
£1,500,000 was necessary, and seventy 
tunnels had to he rebuilt. The leafy 
glens tilled with labyrinths of rocks, and 
mounds studded with oak, rowan, and 
birch, are perhaps more weird in a rainy 
than in a sunshiny day ; hut the greater 
part of Scotch scenery needs sunshine 
to bring out its values. 

One of the noblest stretches of High- 
land scenery is that which lies along the 
railroad from Callendar to the great 
fashionable seaside of Oban. The ride 
from the Trossachs to Callendar is from 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



641) 



end to end associated with Sir Walter 
Scott's poem of " The Lady of the Lake." 
At the foot of Loch Vennachar the trav- 
eller is shown the spot where Roderick 
Dim Hung- down his gage to Fitz James. 
It is a high tribute to creative genius that 
the guides always speak of Sir Walter 
Scott's characters as if they had really 
lived. The route from Callendar to 
Oban takes one through the pass of 
Lucy, where gentle heights, clad with 
silver birch, hazel, oak, and heather, 
rise gradually into irregular and majes- 
tic hills. Loch Earn, Glenogle, Pilchurn 
Castle. Loch Awe, the passes of Brandon 
and <if Awe. the bridge of Awe, — around 
which cluster memories of Bruce and 
Wallace. — and Dunstaffnage Castle, are 
all picturesque, and many of them im- 
posing. Oban is a pretty town extend- 
ing along the shore of the semicircular 
bay which gives it its name, and which 
seems landlocked by the island Kerrera. 
From Dunnolly Castle, a noble ivy- 
shrouded ruin, on a pedestal (if rock (in 
the north end of Oban bay, the sea-view 
is delightful. In the harbor lie dozens 
of yachts, and from these little crafts there 
is always an influx of titled and aristo- 
cratic ladies and gentlemen, who till the 
hotels with the show and glitter of Lon- 
don; who delight in parties, mountain 
excursions, and halls; who. in short, 
carry into the remote recesses of the 
highland sea-shore the gaycty of the 
metropolis, exactly as the Frenchman 
takes his theatre, his sweetheart, and his 
horse-racing with him when he goes to 
the sea-side for what he is pleased to 
term his ■•mid-summer repose." Through 
the pretty archipelago one goes to the 
little bay of Crinan. whence by the At- 
lantic canal travellers are transferred to 
Ardrishaig, — a three-mile ride in a canal 
boat, something larger than a wash-tub. 
— an excursion which is decidedly de- 



pressing when performed in the midst of 
a pouring rain. At Ardrishaig great 
steamers, equipped with American lux- 
ury, with showy restaurants and hand- 
some parlors, fly downward past Rothe- 
say, one of the most fashionable Scotch 
sea-sides, and thence by the Clyde to 
( Sreenock. Northward from Oban leaves 
the great water-route of the Caledonian 
canal to Inverness through what is called 
the Great Glen of Scotland, which con- 
sists of a chain of lakes connected by 
shallow streams. This route is so 
straight that the steamer's course is only 
four miles longer than the air-line taken 
by the crow in his migrations. On Loch 
Ness is the celebrated fall of Fyers, 
sometimes described as the most magnifi- 
cent cataract in Great Britain, and the 
one which inspired Robert Burns with a 
poem. Inverness, the capital of the 
Highlands, is a well-built modern town, 
prosperous and canny. Near it is the 
battle-field of Culloden, where the house 
of Stuart met its final ruin nearly a cen- 
tury and a half ago ; and a lover of 
Shakespeare can make an excursion to 
Cawdor Castle, a noble specimen of the 
old baronial strongholds of the north. 

Landed proprietors in Scotland fully 
appreciate their privileges, and lease the 
temporary enjoyment of them for enor- 
mous sums. Millais, the painter, and 
other artistic celebrities lease fishing 
and hunting grounds for sums which 
would be thought ruinously extravagant 
in America. John Millais is very fond 
of painting in the Scotch Highlands, 
working energetically out of doors in 
rain or sunshine every day for months 
together, lovingly studying that nature 
which he knows so well how to repro- 
duce. The Queen, it is said, enjoys no 
portion of her year so much as that spent 
at Balmoral Castle, between Ballater and 
Braemar. All through this region the 



650 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



scenery is wildly picturesque. Prince 
Albert speedily fell in love with it, and 
there bought a handsome property, which 
to-day comprises ten thousand acres of 
clearing, with inure than thirty thousand 
of deer forest. In this secluded retreat 
the Queen receives only a few persons 
belonging to the Court and those semi- 
weekly messengers who bring from Lon- 
don the constantly accumulating mass of 
papers which the royal hands are obliged 
to sign. 

Stirling, with its noble ancient castle, 
which in 1304 resisted the battering of 
all the besieging instruments brought 
from the Towci- of London ; with its 
monument to Bruce, its historic Town 
House, and the Old Ridge, where the 
Scots under Wallace defeated the Eng- 
lish ; Dunblane and Bannockburn, the 
ruins of Linlithgow Palace, in the castle 
of which Queen Alary was born — are 
all worthy of attention. Nobly situated 
Perth, with its Roman memories, its 
palace, in which the Scottish kings were 
crowned, and its quaint church of St. 
John, where Joku Knox used to preach ; 
Dundee, on the hanks of the Tav. with 
its great range of docks covering more 
than thirty acres; and Aberdeen, on the 
Dee, with it> great lines of masts ex- 
tending for miles, and its old brig of 
Balgownie, celebrated by Byron in Don 
Juan, — all offer ample inducement to the 
student and the tourist. Loth Scotland 
and Spain have an extra European flavor 
which is quite piquant. Both are rugged 
promontories extending into strange seas. 
Each has a certain wildness which is 
fascinating, each a delightful history and 
crowded past, each a certain barrenness 
contrasted acutely with a perfection of 
color and of utility. To get out of mid- 
dle Europe into either of these countries is 
a side excursion — a run into the bowers 
— which is exhilarating and refreshing. 



A southward journey from Glasgow 
through the Frith of Clyde and across 
the North channel brings the traveller 
in a. single night from Glasgow to Belfast. 
Scotland and Ireland have not much in 
common, but the sturdy Scotch-Irish 
character produced by the intercourse 
and crossing of the two races in southern 
Scotland and northern Ireland is one of 
the brightest composite elements of 
American nationality. If all Ireland 
could be permeated with the hard com- 
mon-sense of Scotland, and if all Scot- 
land could receive a diffusion of the gen- 
erosity of the Irish nature, both countries 
would be supremely benefited. In north- 
ern Ireland there is all the stir and ac- 
tivity of the energetic Scotch. 

Leilas! , handsome and industrious, 
seated on its pretty slopes on River 
Logan, just before it flows into the lake, 
is a strange contrast to the shiftless 
towns of the south. The pushing Prot- 
estant merchants of Belfast are the 
envy of the lazier and less ambitious 
commercial men of Dublin and of the 
southward towns. Belfast grows with 
almost American quickness. It adds 
twenty or thirty thousand to its popula- 
tion every ten years. " This great and 
flourishing city," says a local writer, 
" with all its houses and inhabitants, 
stands on the territory of one proprietor, 
the Marquis of Donegal, to whom the 
whole town belongs, anil to whom the 
citizens pay tribute." Belfast was pre- 
sented by James I. to Sir Arthur Chi- 
chester as an insignificant village, and 
would, but for the long leases granted 

by the former proprietor, have given to 

the Marquis of Donegal an income of 
more than £300,000 sterling annually. 
The rights and incomes of Scottish land- 
lords have been greatly reduced in recent 
times, but there are many such instances 
as that of Belfast. The great linen fac- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



651 



tories contain a bustling and somewhat 
bold number of operatives who, when 
there are burning questions agitated 
between South and North, manifest 
broken heads with the utmost freedom. 
Hundreds of thousands of spindles are 
here employed, even in times of great 
depression in trade. On the river there 
are docks and ship-building establish- 
ments, out of which the great "White 
Star fleet, one of the noblest that ploughs 
the ocean, has come. A few miles from 
Belfast is Clandeboye, the country-side 
of the Earl of Dufferin, who has had so 
full and prominent a political career in 
the last twenty years, and who has now, 
in times of trouble for the Indian Em- 
pire, been called to the high position of 
Viceroy of that great realm. Lord Duf- 
ferin is a consummate politician, and an 
able diplomat, who has been offered ex- 
cellent opportunities to study in Russia 
and in the East those burning questions 
which are to be fought out on the plains 
of Central Asia, and the settlement of 
which will decide the future of England 
and its Imperial domain. Northward 
from Belfast lead pleasant routes to 
Port Rush and the Giant's Causeway, to 
ancient and decaying Dunluce Castle, 
and to a hundred other historic points 
along the doubly indented coast. 

From time to time the English people 
appear to have forgotten that Ireland 
exists, or if they allude to it at all, it is 
in a tone of contemptuous indifference 
or of reproach, because the ''Union" 
has not been attended with that harmony 
of sentiment political, religious, and 
social, which ought to be expected of 
fellow-subjects of one sovereign. Hut 
for the last few years all England lias 
had its attention closely called to, and 
even centred upon, Ireland and Irish 
politics. The leading papers of Loudon 
e\ cry day have columns filled concerning 



the distress or the agitation prevalent in 
the " Green Isle; " and the landlords of 
England may now and then have fancied 
they saw the handwriting on the wall, 
when they heard of the ruin of Irish land- 
lords, because of the leagues of the 
peasantry, and their persistent ostracism, 
(which took its name from an ostracized 
person ami became "boycotting"), and 
when they saw the energy of the Home 
Rule party fighting its way against dis- 
tress and dislike, but guaranteed a hear- 
ing by that love for fair play which is so 
striking a characteristic in the English 
mind. After the decline of the Fenian 
agitation England had resumed its in- 
difference with regard to Ireland, until 
the upspringing of the Laud Leaguers 
and the creation of "Centres "all over 
Ireland, and the determined uprising of 
the peasantry, in the wild regions where 
they had been content to live with as 
little comfort as the bony swine which 
trotted in and out of their cabins. When 
Mr. Gladstone came into office, after the 
resignation of Lord Beacousfield, and 
the final retirement of the Conservative 
leader from politics, he found that he 
had inherited a formidable list of Irish 
difficulties, and that the sixty-five Home 
Rulers, who had come into the new 
House of Commons, were determined 
that these difficulties should have ample 
discussion, and settlement if possible. 
Lord Beaconsfield, at the close of his 
political career, issued a political mani- 
festo, a letter to the Viceroy of Ireland, 
denouncing the Home Rulers in the 
strongest terms, and declaring the agra- 
rian agitation in that country a danger 
which, in its ultimate results, would be 
scarcely less disastrous than pestilence 
and famine. With the troubles caused 
by the alarm of famine and the outcry 
raised against the demands for no rent 
by the disciples of Mr. l'arnell. Mr. 



652 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Gladstone resolutely grappled, and did 

tlic best that he or any one else could 
have done in the presence of the exact- 
ing and jealous opinion of Eugland. To 
Mr. Parnell's strong character and un- 
consciousness was due the rapid advance 
which he made as to a supreme position. 
His advice to the peasantry to hold the 
land and pay only such rent as they 
deemed fair, and the quickness with 
which this advice was adopted, led to 
the reopening of the Irish land question, 
which we need not follow through its 
varied phases here. The attitude of 
Parliament to Ireland has been one of 
commiseration, mingled with the deepest 
distrust. The noble gentlemen who have 
endeavored to regulate the affairs of the 
"Emerald Isle" seem to place them- 
selves in the position of admitting that 
the possession of landed property in Ire- 
land needed instant reform, but that it 
was inexpedient to put the reform in 
operation. The period of outrages began 
just so soon as the Land League had de- 
cided that tenants should pay no more 
than the l- prairie" value, L'") percent, 
of the value of the letting of ordinary 
land. " when the basis of rating was fixed 
according to the low standard of agri- 
cultural prices which ruled a generation 
ago." 

The Land League meetings and the 
tremendous agitation which they roused 
throughout the greater part of Ireland 
soon brought about the prosecution for 
seditious conspiracy against .Air. Par- 
ncll and other home-rule members, as 
well as the officers of the Laud League. 
England rather hesitated before under- 
taking tin' statute prosecutions, realizing 
that they would not stop the lawlessness 
in Ireland. Meantime the uprising in 
1880 reached its h.-i-ht . and a veritable 
army was sent to crush down public 
opinion and compel the Land League to 



retire from its aggressive attitude ; but it 
was found that troops could not prevent 
an indignant population from intimidat- 
ing those who were unpopular in its 
midst. With 1881, when this agrarian 
reign of terror seemed at its height, 
Europe was offered the spectacle of lib- 
eral Mr. Forster moving in the House of 
Commons the introduction of coercion 
bills; and then came a great struggle in 
Parliament, first over these bills, and then 
afterward over Mr. (Hailstone's long- 
promised Land Hill. Meantime, although 
the coercion bills checked outrage in the 
year of 1881, the Land League organ- 
ization grew in strength. Tenants re- 
fused to pay rent, landlords hesitated 
before the process of eviction which 
they had been so quick in old times to 
employ, and by-and-by all Ireland re- 
belled against the Coercion Act with a 
force which fairly startled England out 
of its traditional inertia and indifference 
with regard to Irish affairs. 

The Land Act had become a law, and 
England thought Ireland should be satis- 
lied with the modifications which it 
brought in regard to the control of 
landed property. Many of the moderate 
Home Killers had declared in favor of 
this act, and Mr. Parnell himself is said 
to have hesitated before deciding against 
it. Meanwhile the reflex opinion of the 
agitation in America, and the sudden 
blossoming of the dynamite policy. 
brought matters to a crisis. English 
opinion revolted in presence of the ex- 
aggerated rumors concerning the atro- 
cious means which agitators in America 
and Ireland were said to propose for 
coercing British opinion. Just at this 
junction Mr. Parnell appeared with his 
new doctrine, aimed directly at the Land 
Act. and intended to show that justice 
required the reduction of the total rent 
of Ireland from £17,000,000 sterling 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



653 



annually to between £2,000,000 and 
£3,000,000. This England considered 
an impossible standard of " fair rent," 
and English landlords holding land in 
Ireland and native land-owners were 
enraged. Mr. Gladstone called this doc- 
trine of Parnell the "Gospel of Public 
Plunder." Even the Catholic bishops 
were lukewarm in their appreciation 
of it. 

The Land League was now bolder than 
ever; but presently Mr. Parnell, Mr. 
Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and 
other prominent agitators, were arrested 
under the Coercion Act, and lodged in 
Pill as "suspects." Riots in Dublin 
and Limerick, caused by these arrests, 
were promptly put down, and for the 
time it seemed as if the implacable aver- 
sion of the Land League to all compro- 
mising measures on the part of England 
had resulted in the destruction of the 
League itself. A proclamation was is- 
sued publicly suppressing the League, 
but at the same time the Land Commis- 
sion was opened, and applications for 
fixing fair rent began to come in ; but in 
the southern provinces the "no-rent" 
policy was adopted by thousands of 
tenants. What the agitation really did 
secure was the practical reduction of 
rents throughout Ireland. " In Ulster, 
Minister, and Connaught," says the 
" Times" of 1881 , "rents were generally 
reduced from twenty to thirty per cent., 
and in many cases much more. Tenan- 
cies on old estates where rents had been 
paid twenty, thirty, or even fifty years 
were as freely handled as new tenancies 
on properties purchased in the Landed 
Estates Court. The landlords were 
struck with dismay, and vehement pro- 
tests were made on their behalf." It is 
odd to notice that when the Land Bill 
was first introduced in Parliament, the 
Ministry thought that no reduction of 



existing rents was possible, and every- 
body said that all the tenants would be 
glad to make friendly regulations with 
their landlords, realizing that if their 
rents went into court they would be 
raised rather than diminished. The 
surprise of the Ministry when it discov- 
ered how times had changed was very 
great. The land agitation, which had 
been kept out of England and Ireland 
by the "silvery streak," as our British 
cousins call the Channel, nearly a cen- 
tury after it had been triumphant in 
France, and for more than a generation 
after it had been completed in an aristo- 
cratic country like Hungary, had at last 
crossed the water and begun its work. 
The Euglisb say that it did not come by 
the Channel, but went round via America 
and crossed the Atlantic. 

The year 1882 opened with Mr. Par- 
nell still in jail, with the Protection Act 
administered with resolution by Mr. 
Forster, and with the effects of the Land 
Act gradually becoming visible. There 
was an invariable reduction of rent 
every day from one-fifth to one-third of 
the previous rentals. Yet the exacting 
tenantry held out in large numbers for 
no rent, kept away from the courts, and 
announced their implacable hostility by 
outrages which wrung cries of horror 
from both England and America. The 
now defunct Land League was working 
in the dark, but denied any connection 
with the perpetrators of the outrages. 

By-and-by Mr. Forster, who was tired 
of hearing himself called opprobrious 
names, resigned his position as Secretary 
for Ireland. The Protection Act was 
abandoned, the Land- Leaguers were re- 
leased, and came back to the House of 
Commons, where they began a tremen- 
dous onslaught on Mr. Forster, who found 
himself in the ticklish position of a 
private citizen defending his late course 



654 



El ROVE IN STOIIM AXD CALM. 



in a public position. Mr. Gladstone 
appeared with the statement that Mr. 
Parnell seemed willing to help the cause 
of order, and England smiled at what it 
called the Kilmainham treaty, or the 
understanding between the Ministry and 
the Land League party. Then came the 
appointment of Lord Spencer as Viceroy 
of Ireland, with the generous and high- 
miuded Lord Cavendish as Chief Secre- 
tary ; and, just as the ollicial circles were 
congratulating themselves upon the pa- 
cification of Irish feeling and the absence 
of any need of coercion, the assassination 
of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the 
under Secretary, Mr. Burke, in Phoenix 
Park, within full sight of the vice-regal 
lodge, was announced. This extraordi- 
nary assassination made a deep impres- 
sion on English feeling, and the better 
classes in Ireland recoiled from any as- 
sociation with such detestable crime. 

There has rarely been a greater out- 
pouring of sympathy than was mani- 
fested when this second sou of the Duke 
of Devonshire was brought home to be 
buried at the noble country-seat of 
Chatsworlh, after his brief career as a 
liberal official desirous of conciliating 
the opinion of what is ironically called 
the "Sister Island." Now came, with 
swift feet, the " Crimes Bill," which all 
parties, with the exception of Mr. Par- 
nell and his disciples, supported. The 
police system in Ireland was reorganized ; 
the application of the law was made 
more certain ; and although the people 
still worked in the dark, — a presiding 
justice narrowly escaped the attack of 
an assassin ; a juror in an agrarian 
case was stabbed and left for dead, men 
vmic beaten and mutilated in their 
cabins at night; horses and cattle were 
killed, and houses and farms were 
burned, — still it was thought that the 
peasantry would be won over to the 



cause of order by the Land Act. But 
the Land League declared that the Eng- 
lish Parliament bad failed to conciliate 
Ireland, demanded an enlargement of 
the scope of the Land Act. the control 
of local taxation by Nationalists, and, 
in short, a local economy such as Ire- 
land has never enjoyed. 

The land agitation which had now 
gone ou for three or four years in stead- 
ily increasing proportions in Ireland, 
began to have its influence in England. 
Lord Salisbury issued a cry of warning 
in an article called "Disintegration," 
published in one of the reviews. He 
also showed his foreknowledge and fore- 
sight of what was coming by bringing 
forward his views on the " housing of 
the poor." At the same time Mr. 
Chamberlain had come into Parliament 
by a vigorous attack on the land-owning 
classes, on whom he threw the duty of 
removing all the duellings unfit for hab- 
itation, and replacing them by good, 
substantial houses. Next came the doc- 
trine of land nationalization, — the out- 
growth of the agitation of Mr. Henry 
George, in America ; and throughout 
1883 English land-owners were as busy 
with questions directly affecting their 
own interests as they had been two 
years before with those affecting only 
the Irish land-owner. The law weighed 
heavily upon Ireland all through 1883. 
The formation of the National League 
at the close of 1882 was understood as 
the old Land League under thin dis- 
guise, and it was observed that the 
speakers at the meetings of the National 
League were all chiefs of the Separatist 
party. 

The conspirators known as " The 
Invineibles," who had planned and 
carried out the assassination in Phoenix 
Park, the murder of the man who had 
informed against The Invineibles, and 



EUROPE jy STORM AND CALM. 



655 



the conspiracies for the use of dynamite 
in Loudon, Birmingham, and Glasgow, 
enraged the English, and the outcome of 
four busy years of parliamentary tinker- 
ing seemed to have resulted only in the 
triumph of the peasant over the landlord, 
and au increased determination of the 



and Scotland. Innocent travellers 
coming from the continent were suli- 
jected to all the rigors which alarmed 
customs officials could invent. An Al- 
pine hat or an American accent was suf- 
ficient to subject the wanderer to careful 
watching by the police; and such explo- 




A LAND-LEAGUE MASS-MEETING. 



Home Rule party to puisne its policy 
regardless of difficulties and opposition. 
The Separatists had received a severe 
shock at the time of the conspiracy dis- 
closures, but in 1884 recovered, and 
assailed the Executive in Dublin with all 
their force, and by means which were 
scarcely creditable to their frankness or 
sincerity. The dynamite party became 
so aggressive in its bearing that its ex- 
ploits created a veritable panic in England 



sions as occurred at Victoria station, at 
St. James square, Scotland yard, Lon- 
don Bridge, and, finally, at Westminster 
and the Tower of London, so shocked 
and enraged the public that it was un- 
willing to hear of any conciliatory meas- 
ures with regard to Ireland. But events 
in which the honor, and even the very ex- 
istence, of Imperial Britain are connected 
have compelled a certain modification of 
tone, even of sentiment, and the Heir- 



i;>i; 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



Apparent to the throne finds it not incon- peared, bearing green banners and 

sistent with his dignity to hold court in other national emblems, and loading 

Dublin, and to make a long- journey precessions of men. women, and chil- 

through the disaffected districts. drcn, who were to listen to the speakers 

The Land League agitation, and the assembled at a cottage just rebuilt by 

meetings and gatherings of the peasantry the Land-Leaguers after it had heeu 

when tin's agitation was at its height, torn down to render practicable the 

were some of the most curious features eviction of a tenant who refused to 

of the revolution gradually being accom- pay rent. This was one of the most 






' :;wp.: 





frit \ wlwfflH 1 

IHHhL 
■U'HHK 



A FAM1UAH IRISH 
SCENE. 



plished in the •• Emerald Isle." I made 
an excursion into Ireland shortly before 
tin' suppression of the organization ami 
i lie arrest of its principal members. 
From old Galway for miles along the 
road which I took on my way to a 
Land-League mass-meeting, the fields 
had been lying fallow for many vears ; 
hundreds of cabins were deserted and 
unroofed, and dozens of others were 
fitter for the habitations of swine than 
for human beings. At every cross-road 
on this rainy Sunday horsemen ap- 



daring things which had been done in 
Ireland. The defiance of the law was 
patent, and I was not a little surprised 
to find the parish priest at tin head of 
the movement. Arriving on a bleak 
hill overlooking Lough Corrib, where the 
meeting was to lie held, I was met by 
the priest, who introduced me to a. num- 
ber of country squires, and to certain 
pale-faced agitators who had conic up 
expressly from the Irish cities to help on 
the movement. 

A few hundred yards from this cottage 



EUROPE IN STORM ANT) CALM. 



fi. r >7 



which was the visible expression of the 
Land League's resistance to the law, 
three or four hundred soldiers of the 
" Constabulary," as it is called in Ire- 
hind, were drawn up in military array, 
and a smart young officer, approaching 
the priest, touched his hat courteously 
and announced that he should detail two 
of his men to protect the government 
reporter. " Bring him on," said the 
priest, " liut don't let the boys get at 
him. I would not answer for him this 
clay." So presently the government 
stenographer, on whose report was to 
be based any prosecutions which might 
ensue for treasonable language, was 
brought up under guard and seated at the 
hustings. Then arose a yell of execration 
from the crowd, which now numbered 
two or three thousand people, and which 
was soon to lie reinforced by long 
lines of peasantry whom we could see 
miles away, marching around the end of 
the lake. At the head of one of these 
processions fluttered an American flag, 
borne by a stalwart farmer. Some of 
the peasants carried wooden swords and 
pikes, artistically stained with red. sup- 
posed to imitate the Saxon gore which was 
some day to be spilled. Numbers of the 
patriots had imbibed spirituous fluids to 
counteract the omnipresent moisture ; and 
now and then an ardent defender of the 
Irish cause questioned my presence and 
my identity, with the addition of epithets 
not altogether agreeable. One inflamma- 
ble gentleman, who had recently returned 
from the United States, informed me. 
while I was on the hustings some 
twenty feet from the ground, that 
I might be a Saxon reporter, and that if 
it were found to be so he would have me 
handed down. The parish priest, how- 
ever, took this gentleman to task for 
having begun his festivities too early in 
the day, and threatened him with the 



waters of Lough Corrib if he was rude 
to the stranger. 

The scene was wild ; the fierce faces 
of the peasantry, — faces thin with 
want, and flushed with an angry pleasure 
as they heard the government assailed. 
— as they heard stories of tyranny, and 
incentives to rebellion catalogued and 
recited, were wilder still. This was the 
beginning of revolution likely to go far, 
anil do much damage, if not cheeked by 
artful legislation. Even the gentlemanly 
and courteous priest forgot his mildness 
when he addressed the people. 

The greatest demands of Mr. Parnell 
and his followers were thought mild and 
insufficient by this throng of laborers 
who had never until recent years dreamed 
that they could rebel against the land- 
lord. Now this thought was uppermost 
in their minds: How can we dispense 
with the landlord altogether? How can 
we become ourselves possessors of the 
soil? I thought that in the frequent 
appeals of the priest to the people to 
remain within the letter of the law there 
was a mild satiric flavor. His eve 
twinkled when he had finished his ad- 
dress ; and the cries and curses which 
rose from his hearers when the name of 
any unpopular landed proprietor or 
official was mentioned appeared to give 
the good man positive pleasure. 

As I drove home on the jaunting-car 
that night, under the flitting moonlight, 
and over the roads wet and soggy with 
the protracted rain, I came from time 
lo time upon sentinels posted at cross- 
roads, and now and then dark figures 
rose up cautiously from behind the walls 
or hedges, and disappeared, as if satis- 
fied that the passer-by was a neutral, 
and was not to be molested. 1 confess 
that had I been a land-owner of the 
neighborhood I should not have ridden 
home alone and unarmed that night. 



658 



EUUOl'E IN STORM A.\l> CALM. 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE. 



Dublin ami its Chief Features. — The Irish Climate. — Trinity College. —The Environs of the Irish 
Capital. — The Great Western Gateways, — Queenstown and Liverpool. 



ri'HIE Irish are justly proud of their 
J- capital, which is in no wise inferior 
in the beauty of its streets and the ele- 
gance of its shops to London or other 
large towns in England. There are a 
few picturesque bits in the city proper 
on the banks of the River Liffey, which 
divides the town into two nearly equal 
parts, — eastward into the noble bay on 
one side, on which is the famous hill of 
llowth; and on the other, Killiney hill. 
Around the great Custom-House always 
cluster flocks of vessels, and one would 
scarcely fancy, while looking at the com- 
mercial head-quarters of Ireland, that the 
country is cursed with poverty, and that 
its manufactures as well as its agriculture 
are in an almost prostrate condition. 

June is the time to visit Dublin — June, 
with its bright sunshine, interspersed 
with sudden showers (if rains in Ireland 
every day), and with its splendor of 
verdure and blossom on the neighboring 
mountains. In the midsummer season 
it is broad daylight until almost ten 
o'clock in this far northward city, and 
daylight comes again alter but three, or, 
at most, three and one-half, hours of 
darkness. Visiting Dublin some years 
ago, on the occasion of an international 
festival, and being nightly called to 
attend some banquet or prolonged social 
festivity, I had, in a period of three 
weeks, no night at all, for when I went 
to my engagement it was still light 
enough to read a newspaper in the 
streets, and when I went home to rest it 
hail long been bright daylight. In winter 



the climate is trying, variable, and some- 
what exhausting. 

The long streets are shrouded in 
fog, and the barren slums, with their 
picturesque and motley population of 
infirm old men and women (and where 
are there such old men and old women 
as in Ireland ?) are pitiable enough. The 
beggars are numerous and aggressive. 
They bless and curse with equal volubil- 
ity. The gift of sixpence is sufficient to 
draw down blessings for a twelvemonth 
upon the giver's head. The soldier, red- 
jacketed, smartly groomed and attired, is 
seen on every coiner. England keeps a 
formidable garrison, nearly thirty thou- 
sand strong, in Ireland, and will not 
withdraw it, even in the face of most 
pressing needs outside, until the with- 
drawal is imperative. The Castle, as it 
is called, where the lord-lieutei:ant or 
the viceroy, as he is somewhat bombas- 
tically denominated, holds his court and 
has his official residence, is not quite so 
imposing as the Castle of Edinburgh, but 
is said to have been in former times a 
noteworthy structure. 

One chief room is the vice-regal 
chapel, where the lord lieutenant and 
his family attend divine service. This 
chapel has a curious feature in the 
shape of sculptured heads on the win- 
dows and doors, like those around the 
Place Yendome in Paris. The vice- 
regal apartments contain an ornamental 
hall, with a throne richly embroidered 
with gold, where, on the rare occasions 
when royalty condescends to visit the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



659 



sister island, levees and crushes are 
held. The ball-room, known as St. 
Patrick's Chapel, the Council Chamber, 
and the magnificently furnished drawing- 
room, are the only very interesting 
things. There are two kinds of society 
in Dublin, which for the stranger may 
be well enough classified as the loyal 
and the national. Around the lord 
lieutenant is a formidable group of the 
resident Protestant English and Protes- 
tant Irish, of the more important land- 
owners of both nationalities, the official 
world, the magistrates, and placemen of 
all kinds. The Nationalists are not so 
strong, but profess to have a more brill- 
iant social organization. Royalty, how- 
ever, draws them strangely near together, 
as it has done in the recent visit of the 
Prince of Wales. The lower classes, 
turbulent and irreconcilable, watch with 
jealous eye the conduct of their city offi- 
cials, and if any one from the Lord 
Mayor of Dublin down dares to curry 
favor with English loyalty or English 
opinion he is signalled for vexations 
innumerable. 

Of the exterior features of Dublin 
none is more striking than Trinity Col- 
lege, which stands in College Green, 
directly opposite the old Bank of Ireland. 
This college, which was founded under 
a bull obtained from Pope John XXII., 
was closed in the time of Henry VIII., 
but was opened again in the reign of 
Elizabeth, who made it a corporation in 
the name of the " College of the Holy 
and Indissoluble Trinity." Within and 
without it is rich with works of art of 
highly respectable character. Portraits 
of Dean Swift, Bishop Berkeley, Arch- 
bishop King. Lord Oriel, Professor Bald- 
win, Grattan, and Frederick, Prince of 
Wales, ornament the halls. In front of 
the college are statues of Oliver Gold- 
smith and of William III. The dinner 



in the grand hall of the Refectory, with 
the officials of the college in their robes, 
and with the singularly pleasing arrange- 
ment of toasts and musical responses, 
is one of the most novel features of 
European social life. The uproarious 
demonstrations of the students of Trinity 
occasionally disturb the decorum of 
Dublin, the Celtic student apparently 
considering it his privilege in Ireland, as 
in France, to make himself disagreeable 
to the government and to his neighbors 
upon the most trivial provocation. 

The Bank of Ireland is the Old Par- 
liament House, in which, I suppose, Mr. 
Parnell and his followers would like to 
install their Home Rule Parliament by- 
and-by. The old House of Commons is 
now the cash office of the bank, and the 
House of Lords is still left as it was in 
the times when Ireland had a Parlia- 
ment, save that the site of the throne is 
occupied by a statue of George III. 
The dilapidated tapestries on the wall 
represent King William crossing the 
Boyne, and the Siege of Derry. Under 
the pavement of the cathedral of St. 
Patrick lie the mortal remains of 
Dean Swift and Esthei Johnson, who 
was the " Stella" of his poetry. Swift 
was once dean of this cathedral, which 
was restored about twenty-five years 
ago by a celebrated Dublin brewer, 
who expended more than £100,000 
upon it. The Nelson Monument, raised 
by the Irish admirers of the hero of 
Trafalgar, and the Wellington Testimo- 
nial, erected by Wellington's townsmen, 
are objects of interest. The Military 
Hospital, the Carlisle bridge, the Na- 
tional Gallery of Ireland, and the Royal 
Hibernian Academy, are the chief public 
buildings. 

The admirer of the great O'Connell 
may renew his souvenirs of that tre- 
mendous orator by a visit to Conciliation 



6K0 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



Hall, where O'Connell achieved some of 
liis greatest triumphs. The gilded harp 
and the shamrock of Ireland are still 
preserved on the ceiling of this hall, hut 
a corn-merchant now occupies the prem- 
ises. In Glasnevin Cemetery is the tomb 
of O'Connell, a granite round tower one 
hundred and sixty feet high : and there, 
too, reposes the illustrious Curran. <>u 
Stephens Green, a pretty square with 
clusters of trees and shrulis, surrounded 
on :dl sides with the handsomest man- 
sions in the town, is the Royal College 
of Surgeons, with a museum, :i statue 
of George II.. and an industrial 
museum of very creditable character. 
Stephens Green is the scene of many 
of the Nationalists' manifestations, but 
it is in Phoenix Park that the population 
of Dublin loves best to manifest. This 
park, covering an area of more than 
seventeen thousand acres, is very beau- 
ful, and is often a scene of grand mili- 
tary reviews when England desires to 
show her strength to her Irish neigh- 
bors. The immediate vicinity of Dublin 
is of rare and exquisite beauty. Kings- 
town harbor — the port of Dublin — is 
pretty ; and the fashionable resort of Dal- 
key. where the old Dublin merchants of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
preferred having their goods landed rather 
than allow their ships to venture into the 
bay and attempt the passage of the 
Lil'fey, is a pretty suburb. Powers- 
court, otic of the few Irish estates 
whose landlord was always popular with 
his tenants, is an admirable specimen of 
an Irish country residence. The great 
baronial mansion, in the midst of delight- 
ful scenery, contains a vast parlor, where 
George IV. was entertained when he vis- 
ited Ireland in 1821 ; and the Glen, 
through which the Dargle flows, is one 
of the most romantic in Ireland. The 
charms of the Wieklow mountains, of 



the Headland of Bray, the Devil's Glen, 
the Seven Churches, and the Vale of 
Avoca have so often been celebrated in 
both prose and verse that there is little 
new to say about them here. The stran- 
ger who abides for some time within the 
gates of Dublin will be sure to hear a 
lair Irish maiden singing, with the deli- 
cate lisp and the clearness of enunciation 
which characterize the English spoken 
in the Irish capital, Moore's pretty ballad 
about the Avoca, which begins thus : — 

" There is not in the wide world a valley so 

sweet 
As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters 

meet. 
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must 

depart 
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from 

my heart." 

At all concerts and musical festivals 
given at Dublin the national poetry is 
brought out in strong relief, and always 
awakens a storm of enthusiasm. The 
south of Ireland is a pretty country, 
rich in legend and romance, and in 
varied scenery, which, while it never 
approaches the grand and bold, is emi- 
nently satisfactory and sometimes be- 
witching. The old seat of Waterford, 
and the town with its church about 
which Father Prout wrote, — 



" The bells of Sha 
That sound so ^rand 



ndon, 



i nai- souuu so grand on 

The pleasant waters of the River Lee; " — 

the cove of Cork, or Queenstown, with 
its majestic harbor. — ample enough to 
contain all the navies of the world, 
Blarney, Youghal and the Black Water, 
Killarney and the lakes, the Gap of Dun- 
loo and the Black Valley, Loch Lean, In- 
nisf alien, Muckross Abbey and the Peaks, 
Bandon, Glengariff, and Bantry, — all 
these embrace a curious mixture of wild- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



(5(51 



►3 

H 

m 



o 






m 
a 

no 
O 

: 




662 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



ness and of gentle beauty. The great 
cliffs, the lofty blue crags, and the high- 
lands, which break into the vast expanse 
of the Atlantic, are beautiful under the 
summer sun, but in the mists and winds 
of winter are forbidding and desolate. 
Queenstown is one of the great gate- 
ways out <>(' Europe to America, and the 
harbor is always alive with the enormous 
steamers crawling across the greenish- 
blue waves, with the sprightly tugs and 
tenders transporting passengers to and 
from the ocean arks, and with men-of- 
war, which droit in casually, as if to say 
to Ireland, " lie tranquil." 

There is constant commercial inter- 
course between Dublin and Liverpool, — 
the great western gateway of Great 
Britain, — Liverpool which has grown 
rich and prosperous out of the American 
trade, and, for that matter, out of the trade 
of every country under the sun. Here the 
finest dorks in the world would be vastly 
imposing if one could have an atmosphere 
for the space of a single day in which 
to visit them. Liverpool was a little 
hamlet three hundred years ago; to-day 
its population is a little more than half 
a million, and it is said there are always 
at least thirty thousand sailors prome- 
nading its vast quays. It is a proud city, 
proud of its wealth, proud even of its 
climate, which it fiercely defends as in 
nowise objectionable; proud of its great 
River Mersey, with its stone banks, of the 
tleets of ships and steamers which come 
in and go out in hundreds daily; proud 
of the fact that it lias at least two-thirds 
of the whole shipping of Great Britain 
and one-tenth of her foreign trade, — 
half as much trade as the great port of 



London, — and that it brings in nearly 
two million and a half of cotton bales 
from America and from India every year 
to be worked up in the great factories 
in twenty cities not far away. The 
stately St. George's Hall, the palatial 
business structures on Water street, the 
statues of tin 1 Prince Consort and Queen 
Victoria, the Wellington Monument, the 
Foreign Exchange, the Mausoleum of 
Huskisson, the huge docks of Lairds, 
covering five hundred acres on the 
Birkenhead side of the Mersey, — are 
the chief features of Liverpool. 

The city has its slums, into which one 
is obliged to stray with care if he wishes 
to come out alive. There is within five 
minutes' walk of the principal com- 
mercial avenues a labyrinth of streets 
and alley-ways containing more misery 
and filth and abject wretchedness than 
can be found in any other European 
city. The Liverpool Irish are justly de- 
nominated the most degraded people in 
the kingdom, and around them and their 
scarcely less wretched and vicious 
English fellows there is a fringe of 
cosmopolitan vice and want, an inter- 
national tangle of ignorance and poverty, 
a population which scarcely seems to 
have souls, and which veritably seems 
beyond the reach of redemption. One- 
third of the trade of Liverpool is with 
America. The Liverpool merchant is 
a cultivated man, with no prejudices; 
the breadth of the broad seas in his 
character ; he is generous, quick, and 
energetic, and enjoys his fortune as in- 
telligently and modestly as any landed 
proprietor. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



663 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX. 



Lord Beaconsfield. —Mr. Gladstone. — Two Careers Entirely Different in Character, Purpose, and Result. 
— Personal Description of the two Great Premiers. — Imperial Policy. — The Eastern Question in 
1875. — Mr. Gladstone's Attitude. — The Slavs of the South. — Servia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, 
and Montenegro* 



I am overwhelmed," were the words of 
the dying Beaconsfield, as he closed 
his long and agitated career, twelve 
months after he had surrendered his 
premiership, in tiie tranquil retreat of 
Hughenden; and it then seemed as if in 
his words there was all the sadness of a 
prophetic confession. The Imperial policy 
which he had inaugurated with such 
dazzling audacity, and conducted with 
such dexterous, although somewhat sinis- 
ter, skill, had received so many severe 
checks, had brought upon the realm of 
Britain so many disasters, that the Eng- 
lish people were right in questioning 
whether it were wise that it should he 
prosecuted to its logical conclusions. 

An English premier takes his defeat as 
he takes his accession to office, with pro- 
found philosophy ; for he knows that the 
people quickly return upon any judgment 
which they have found erroneous, or which 
they think erroneous, and that the lease 
of power is not very permanent. Just 
as in the autumn of 1873 the people 
showed that they were becoming nervous 
with regard to the reforming zeal of 
the ministry, and that they wished to 
give it a check, so, in 1880, after Mr. 
Gladstone's tremendous Midlothian cam- 
paign, the people began to waver in 
their devotion to the brilliant policy 
which had seduced them by its promise 
of glory and of fortune. Mr. Gladstone 
was a severe and an uncompromising 
critic of Lord Beacousfield's administra- 



tion. He said that the premier's policy 
of '• Empire and Liberty " had simply 
meant denying to others the rights that 
England claimed for herself. He pointed 
to the disasters in Afghanistan ; to the 
fact that India " had not advanced, but 
was thrown back in government, sub- 
jected to heavy and unjust charges, sub- 
jected to what might also be termed, in 
comparison with the government of for- 
mer years, a singular oppression ; at home 
the law broken, and the rights of Parlia- 
ment invaded." It was in vain that 
Beaconsfield, who had so lately been the 
adored of the London populace, the dar- 
ling of the eyes of the Conservative 
dowagers, ami the hero as much in White- 
chapel as in IJelgravia and Mayfair. — 
in both of which widely separated sections 
he was considered as a new champion of 
England, who was to revive the ancient 
prestige of the island kingdom, and 
reduce to a sense of their relative un- 
importance the ambitions powers of the 
North, as he was popularly supposed by 
his English admirers to have done at the 
Berlin Congress, — it was in vain that he 
struck back against his resolute adver- 
sary, that he referred to the attempts made 
to sever the constitutional tie betwec i 
England anil Ireland, and issued his fa- 
mous proclamation calling on " all men 
of light and leading" to resist this de- 
structive doctrine. It was in vain that 
he accused the Liberal party of attempt- 
ing, aud failing, to enfeeble the English 



(;i!4 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

colonies by their policy of decomposition ; tion of independent States. But the 
in vain that lie cried oul that he had policy of intrigue and of petty vexations, 
long previously recognized in the dis- the policy of attempting to check the 
integration <>f the United Kingdom a Russian bear by scattering bitsof orange- 
mode which would not only accomplish peel in his path, had been adopted in- 
but precipitate that purpose ; in vain that stead of the bold and straightforward 
he persisted in his statement that peace plan which England might have adopted ; 

rested Oil the presence, not to say the and were Lord lieaeonslicld alive to-day 

ascendency of England in the councils of to sec the natural outcome of his policy, 
Europe. The impression grew that the so far as it was carried forward, he 
Conservative Ministry, which had been mighl again say, as he said with his 
in power from 1874, had not only caused latest breath, " I am overwhelmed." 
a veritable ami lamentable interregnum Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, who rose to 
in the great progress of reform at home, be Lord Beaconsfield, and Mr. William 
but had weakened the Empire by need- Ewart (lladstone, who might long ago 
less wars abroad, and that its clandes- have been seated in the House of Lords 
tine acquisition of the Island of Cyprus if he would have listened to proposals 
had brought upon il the gravest criti- for his elevation, have so lone- been 
cisnis. Although the proudest moment familiar and imposing figures on the 
of Beacousfield's life was the moment of stage of English politics, and in inter- 
Ins entrance into the House of Lords, on national politics generally, that little 
hi-- return from the Berlin Congress, still new can be said of them here. Both 
not even the fallen Premier himself could these distinguished men had attained in 
conscientiously' assert that he had by his London and in Europe that eminence 
support of this treaty gained anything which attaches to a long continuance of 
for his famous Imperial policy. He power, to frequent returns to its exer- 
COllld not have believed that the barrier cise, and to indisputable authority ami 
of the Balkans could permanently sepa- skill in the management of men. Each 

rale the two halves of the new Bulgarian represented a special and peculiar school 

nation : that they could remain •■ similar of English thought; yet each has always 
ii! race, in religion, in memories, the had throughout his career a marked in- 
one free, the other still enslaved ; ' nor dividuality which seemed to distinguish 
that Russia would be permanently him from the mass of Englishmen. Lord 
checked in her advance on Constauti- Beaconsfield was perhaps — and particu- 
nople by the measures which a. few larlv from 187-1 to his downfall — more 
diplomats seated round a table covered strictly popular than Mr Gladstone. It. 
with green cloth chose to imagine as is certain, however, that he stood upon 
obstacles to that progress from north to a lower level, and that nearly every one 
south which all history tells us is neces- who professed for him such passionate 
sarv and vital, and which is as resistless admiration knell) that he stood upon a 
as an inundation. lower level; but there was a glamour 
Mr. Gladstone had always pointed out. about, him and all his works, an accent 
that the great barrier to a Russian ad- of sincerity in his speeches, even when 
vanee on Constantinople was the crea- they supported the shiftiest of pretexts 

or the must fallacious of positions, which 

i O'Connor's Life of Lord Beaconsfield. lulled to rest, any outcropping suspi- 



EUROPE /.V STOHM AM) CALM. 



i;i;:> 



cions. Heaconsfield had worked himself 
up from a very humble position to that 
which he had coveted in his youth, and 
which lie had boldly asserted he would 
get. He had conquered prejudice, had 
almost conquered fate. lie had that 
profound belief in himself which carries 
men over the most difficult obstacles, and 
finally deludes them into the conviction 
that they are all-powerful before it al- 
lows them to be tripped up and to be 
beaten on the scene of action. 

Mr. Gladstone had not been obliged 
to toil up from the lowest place, but had 
stepped with easy grace at an early age 
into the career for which he had such 
consummate fitness. He had inherited 
a handsome fortune, which allowed him 
to devote his entire energies to the 
public service ; had a wonderful talent 
for finance, a thorough business apti- 
tude, an abiding classical education, 
a fervent religious spirit, and a sen- 
sitive conscience, — too sensitive per- 
haps for modern English politics, with 
its expedients, its trickeries, its anxi- 
eties, and its dangers. One of his 
biographers has said of him that " he 
unites cotton with culture, Manchester 
with Oxford, the deep classical joy over 
the Italian resurrection and Greek inde- 
pendence with the deep English interest 
in the amount of duty on Zante raisins 
and Italian rags." He was already a 
prominent politician when the first Reform 
Bill was brought forward, in 1832, and 
fifty years afterward his voice was heard 
more powerfully than that of any other 
in the English Parliament in advocating 
the completion of the reform which, 
while its progress has been so slow, 
has been so very thorough. Lord Bea- 
consfield, in his youth, when he wished to 
make his maiden speech in the House 
of Commons, had been thoroughly 
laughed :'t, hut had turned upon his 



tormentors, and in terrible tones had 
informed them that the lime would come 
when they would hear him. Mr. Glad- 
Stone had made his Parliamentary dibut 
without melodramatic effect, at once 
commanding the respect and attention 
of all his fellow-members. His very 
first speeches in Parliament were in con- 
nection with the liberation of slaves, 




LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
From Photograph by London Stereoscopic Co. 

and forty years afterward he was vigor- 
ous and earnest as when a youth in 
demanding the freedom from oppression 
of the Christians in the East. Mr. 
Disraeli seems to have considered litera- 
ture as one of the intellectual dissipa- 
tions of his 3'outh. In it he exhaled 
the fiery enthusiasms of his soul, em- 
bodied in correct and facile prose the 
dreams of the career which was before 
him, foreshadowed many of his attempts 
and aims, betrayed many of the weak- 
nesses and follies of his nature, and 



666 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



indicated as clearly as could have been 
indicated by an ethnologist all the prej- 
udices, fancies and hatreds entailed 
upon him by his race, in his books 
may be found the Semitic contempt for 
Christian civilization, the Jewish eager- 
ness to coutrol and lead the Christian; 
and, in all matters of Eastern policy, the 
Jewish unwillingness to aid the Chris- 
tian to resume the place actually his, 
but usurped by the barbarian. 

Mr. Gladstone, while he had not had 
so glittering a literary distinction as his 
great antagonist in his youth, has made 
literature in its higher form the delight 
of his middle life and his declining 
years. His mildest literary recreation is 
the enthusiastic study of Homer and the 
Homeric age. He is one of the few 
Englishmen who thoroughly comprehend 
the Greek mind, ancient and modern. 
Hi' has never allowed his position as Eng- 
lish statesman to interfere with the care- 
ful, non-prejudiced study of continental 
polities from stand-points not entirely 
English. Reformer and agitator by 
instinct, he is moderate in language, 
and his consideration for his opponents 
is proverbial. His patience in the pres- 
ence of great difficulties is unlimited ; 
his disregard of public clamor when he 
thinks it ill-founded may be carried 
very far ; he is not the man to resign in 

a passi nor until he feels that the 

whole majority of his party, to the last 
man, has given up the situation. He is 
content with the progress of each day ; 
he does not threaten or prophesy, — he 
works; he is ready for crises, because 
he always foresees them ; he knows the 
value of a penny, and never fails to in- 
sist upon it : but lie does not hesitate 
to ask enormous sums when the honor 
and dignity of England are threatened. 
If he thinks a war unjust, even though 
he may have been pushed by his own 



party into it, he will open his mouth and 
speak the truth. No sneer of foreign 
cabinets, or threat of enemies, or danger 
of mobs at home, will prevent him from 
deserting the Soudan, and from saying 
the full truth about South Africa. If 
he felt that England, in order to main- 
tain her position as a first-class power, 
were fated to carry out, at all risks and 
hazards, an Imperial policy, which would 
also be a policy of greed and of plunder, 
and interference with other people's 
lights, lie would not sanction that policy 
for any consideration whatsoever. 

Lord Beaconslield might have been 
laid in Westminster Abbey had it not 
been for the strict instructions in his 
will that he was to be buried in Hughen- 
den, beside the wife whom he so tenderly 
loved, and who had done so much for 
the upbuilding of his career. He some- 
times said, with profound emotion, that 
to his wife he owed everything. Doubt- 
less there were moments in his existence 
when he would have given up the 
struggle, and relapsed into deep indif- 
ference, had if not been for her unfailing 
support and counsel. Mr. Gladstone 
was the first to propose that the deceased 
Premier should have the honors of a 
public funeral in Westminster Abbey; 
but it was not to be. The Great Com- 
moner, the Grand Old Man, as he is 
lovingly called by his admirers and 
scornfully spoken of by his enemies, 
the people's William, the ardent supporter 
of Liberalism in aristocratic ami con- 
servative England, will undoubtedly be 
laid beneath the stones of the ancient 
Abbey, to rest in the noble company 
near whose shrines he has spent so many 
long years of activity in the Parliament 
House. Westminster, the epitome and 
crowning glory of England, must act 
now and then as an inspiration to public 
men as they pass to and fro beneath its 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



<>r>7 




GLADSTONE. 
From Photograph by Elliott & Fry, London. 



shadows ; for to be placed there is higher Canning, Grattan, and Wilberforce is 
honor than to be put in the House of an appropriate resting-place for Glad- 
Lords during lifetime ; and for that stone 

matter the Abbey is likely to be the chief It is related of John Bright that, 

of London's monuments many centuries being in the lobby of Parliament one 

after the House of Lords has been but a day, he was approached by a ladv of 

tradition. The pavement which shrouds his acquaintance, who had brought her 

Chatham. Pitt, Fox, Castlereagh, two little hoys to see the political celeb- 



<i<W EUROPE I\ STORM AND CALM. 

rities, and who remarked that (Had- to the poet- laureate and to the favorite 
stone was not present, and that she did actor. Gladstone's lustrous eyes, as 
not regret it as she had but small ad- piercing and magnetic as they were when 
miration for him, repeating numerous he was thirty, were unusually brilliant on 
reasons as to why she ilid not like his that occasion ; and, as he sat in' his corn- 
public record. " Madam," said the fortable box, surrounded by his family, 
great orator, assuming his most, iifipos- lie presented the finished typeof a culti- 
ing mien, "when yon have an oppor- vated, accomplished, and successful Eng- 
tunity to see Mr. Gladstone here, bring lish gentleman, than which no aristo- 
your two boys with you, and when cratic family could furnish a liner. He 
you have been told which is Mr. Glad- was the sublimated man of the people, 
stone, point him out to these children, the best outcome of the sturdy strength 
and say to them, ' There is the greatest of England 

Englishman of all England,' and you All politicians have something of the 
will say the truth.'" comedian in their composition. They 
Both licaconslicld and Gladstone have know how to make their entries and their 
always been fond of promenades in Lon- sorties with skill; and Lord licaconslicld 
don town, so that they are well known excelled in this theatrical quality. His 
to the citizens. Gladstone is the most curl became historic. A pet phrase, 
unceremonious of mortals, and when he delivered with a peculiar gesture, made 
lived in I la rley street, some years ago, its impression and went into history. A 
used to walk, i:i all weathers, down to consummate dandy in his youth, he had 
Parliament House, wrapped up in his something of dandyism in his old aoe. 
hie, high, rough overcoat, and with his A frock-coat may have its eloquence as 
thick leather leggings, looking something much as a spoken word. The indiscreet 
like a country squire who had just arrived gaudiness of the Hebrew was left aside 
at Elision station. Yet, despite the affec- after he reached maturer years, to reap- 
taliou of rusticity, the love for felling pear only now and then in one of his 
trees, or long walks and rides in the speeches, written under strong excite- 
country, and his simplicity of dress and ment. In 1878 Mr. Lacey, the able 
demeanor, he knows how, when it is author of the new " Diary of Two Par- 
proper, to maintain the utmost elegance liaments," wrote thus about Lord Bea- 
and dignity of manner. In these latter consfield : — 
years of his premiership, when becomes 
to the evening of a great speech, there Strangers may now occasionally meet in tho 

are evidences of careful attention to his neighborl I of Parliament street a. notable 

dress. He has a fresh coat, and a flower fl S ure " 1;lki "'s' its way through the throng. 

in the button-hole, or is in irreproachable Tlley n "'" '"'"' fn,il and w, ' ; "'- v the ' M,li - V 

seems, how bent the shoulders, how sunken 

evening costume. Seen anywhere, ami ,, , , , , . ., ,. 

the cheeks, how leaden-hued the lineaments; 

under any circumstances, he would strike but th ,. v a]s0 ,„„,, the dauntless .pint whirl, 
Hi- observer as a remarkable man. I Mill affects a jaunty carriage, and makes be- 
like best to think of him as I saw him lieve that progress is slowly made only because 
one evening at the play, on the first there " no hurry. They further observe with 

admiration the careful newness of the acces- 



representation of Tennyson's ••Cup." 
when a brilliant audience had gathered 
in the Lyceum theatre to do honor both neckcloth, the pearl-gray gloves, guiltless if 



series of the figure, — the shapely coat of the 
when a brilliant audience had gathered , ig htest materia l, the negligent but elegant 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



6fi9 



wrinkle, and the gloss; hat. But these things 
are, however, only for commonplace occa- 
sions. On the clay which marks a crowning 
stage in his memorable career lie puts on an 
old coat, his second-best hat, and the dingy- 
brown trousers of long ago. 

He walked into Palace yard as if lie 
were immensely surprised to rind it packed, 
anil went into the House of Lords without 
looking up, and with an air of being absorbed 
entirely in his forthcoming speech, although 
lie must have known that, instead of the 
empty benches usually seen, the chamber was 
thronged from end to end, that the privy- 
councillors were in their places before the 
throne, ami that the hues of a flower garden 
were blended with the soft colors of a rain- 
bow, which the beauty and rank of the Empire 
formed, and through which, after the storm 
of the Berlin Congress, the sun shone down on 
the Prime Minister. 

Lord Beaconsfield, when he returned 
from Berlin in company with Lord Salis- 
bury, and was on his way from the rail- 
way station to the little blaek house in 
Downing street, where the prime minis- 
ters have always resided, was cheered 
to the echo by the waiting thousands ; 
and yet the outcome of his visit was 
nothing more than the return to slavery 
of a million Christians, — a million 
wrested away from the other millions of 
liberated ones, — who, if the right pol- 
icy had been adopted by England, might 
have been made England's firm allies. 
Lord Beaconsfield's triumph was, as has 
been truly said by one of his biogra- 
phers, " a triumph not of England, not of 
an English policy, not of an English- 
man : it was but the triumph of Judea, a 
Jewish policy, a Jew." 

Five years before the overwhelming 
of Beaeousfield and his policy Glad- 
stone had aroused all liberal England 
to a keen interest in the great events 
which were begiuning in south-eastern 
Europe. There the Turkish oppression 
had finally become intolerable, and 



culminated in an insurrection in Herze- 
govina. This revolt of the peasantry 
against their Mahometan landlords in 
the rocky and picturesque provinces 
which had been under the Turkish do- 
minion for more than four hundred years 
was at once recognized by careful stu- 
dents of European affairs as the opening 
of the Eastern question, with all its 
perils, its penalties, and its possibilities. 
( >f this insurrection in Herzegovina I 
saw much, and to all who looked on 
at the desultory fighting against tiie 
Turks in those autumn days of 187") it 
was evident that a great movement for 
the independence and consolidation of 
the Slavs, who had so long been sepa- 
rated and crushed, had begun. Russia 
was moving mysteriously to promote this 
outbreak against the Turk, but the Turk 
was determined to resist with all his 
power the inroad upon the provinces 
which he had not known how to develop 
or to conciliate. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina, lying on 
the confines of Austria, and possessing 
a population speaking the same Slavic 
tongue spoken by so many millions of 
Austrian subjects, were somewhat more 
accessible to the influences of the outer 
world than provinces like Bulgaria and 
Roumelia. The insurrectionists in Her- 
zegovina and in Bosnia were amply 
aided by warriors from the nnconquered 
" Black mountain," — the Montenegrins, 
so long the guardians of Freedom on 
the frontiers of Europe. The Egyptian 
and Asiatic troops combating against 
these wild men, born among the stones 
and accustomed from their earliest 
infancy to hardships, had but little 
chance of success. Wherever they 
could inflict atrocious cruelties they 
did so. The Austrian frontier was 
lined for miles with camps of the 
refugees from the Turkish vengeance. 



070 



F.I ROPE IX STORM AXf> CALM. 



On the river Save, which forms the 
line of demarkation between Bosnia 
and Austria, I saw. while making a 
journey from Belgrade, in Servia, to 
Sissek, dozens of mutilated bodies of 
men and women floating down the 
stream. These were the persons who 
had been murdered by the Bashi- 
Bazouks. At Raglisa, in October, 
1875, the camps of refugees must have 
contained many thousands of people to 
whom the Austrian government was 
compelled to serve daily pensions, un- 
less it wished to see these people die of 
starvation upon its hands. In rich and 
fertile Bosnia, with its towns teeming 
with an active, industrious population, 
the insurrection was at first quite 
successful ; but there the Turks were 
very prompt and soon brought it under 
subjection. It was therefore to the 
fastnesses and strongholds on the 
Herzegovinan frontier, hard by the 
Dalmatian coast, that the leaders and 
their faithful followers retreated and 
reorganized the guerilla warfare which 
proved so efficient in bringing about 
the greater contests soon to follow. 
With sympathetic populations on the 
Austrian side of the frontier the in- 
surgents were not likely to lack for 
supplies, and so they kept lip their re- 
sistance, waiting impatiently for the 
standard of revolt to be raised in 
Servia, Bulgaria, and in all the rich 
countries of Turkey in Europe. 

Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montene- 
gro were a part of the old country of the 
Dalmatians, which was united to the 
Roman Empire under Tiberius, and com- 
prised, besides the above-mentioned coun- 
tries, a part of present Dalmatia, of 
Upper Slavonia, and of Servia. The 
Romans appear to have colonized only a 
part of the province. All that portion 
situated in the centre and on the east, 



covered with dense forests, was unoccu- 
pied by that august race, probably on 
account of the difficulty of tracing the 
slrategetical routes uniting these and 
the consolidated provinces with the iso- 
lated stations of Pannonia and the colo- 
nies of the Asiatic shore. In the first 
half of the seventh century the Avars, 
profiting by the departure of the legions 
of the Emperor Heraclius, rallied to fight 
the Persians, invaded the province, de- 
vastated it, and occupied it in part. It 
was about that time that numerous .Slavic 
tribes, who had come from beyond the 
Carpathians, established themselves, by 
consent of the Emperor, in the country, 
after they had expelled the Avars. The 
Servians, properly so called, occupied 
Upper Moesia, Sirmia, and Rascia. The 
Chrobates, or Croates, already held all 
that country between [stria and Cettina, 
— to-day Croatia and a partof Dalmatia. 
The Zachlum, originally from Chelm, on 
the borders of the Vistula, and the Na- 
rentines, — the old enemies of Venice, — 
who gave their name to the river Na- 
rcnta, or who, perhaps, took their name 
from it, populated the land of Herze- 
govina. Another tribe came after the 
first, established itself in what is now 
Montenegro, and its people were for a 
long time called Dioclates, from the 
ancient name of the Black mountain. 
Bosnia was soon invaded by these mi- 
grating tribes, and the new Slavic State 
was formed. United for a short time 
under Douehan, these various States 
were soon separated after the tall of the 
Servian empire, and each once enjoyed a 
separated existence, — Bosnia under its 
kings, Herzegovina under its dukes, 
Montenegro under its vladikas, up to 
the time of the Ottoman conquest. Ser- 
via fell in 1457, Bosnia in 1463, Her- 
zegovina in 1467, before the invading 
Turk; but Montenegro, sheltered by her 



EUROPE fX STORM AND CALM. 



l!71 



mountain ramparts, never surrendered 
at all. Bosnia and Herzegovina together 
have about twice the area of Belgium. 
Montenegro is a little labyrinth of rocks, 
interspersed with deep grottos and can- 
yons, — the Montenegrin legend being 
that when the good God was sowing 
rocks and mountains in space, he carried 
them all in a great bag, and that as he 
was passing over a certain point the 
bottom of the bag fell out, and all the 
mountains and rocks in that day's stock 
constituted Montenegro. 

Servia, a compact and fertile State of 
one thousand square miles in area, well 
watered by noble streams and studded 
by splendid forests, is divided into two 
distinct regions: Upper Servia. lying 
between the two Moravas, — the Ser- 
vian, rising in the west, and the Bul- 
garian in the south ; and Lower Servia, 
formed by the ample basin of the Great 
Morava in which these two streams 
unite, has all the elements of empire 
within it. Had it not been for the 
baleful influence of the Turk, under 
whose horses' hoofs no grass can grow, all 
these various .Slavonic States now spring- 
ing into a fresh and vigorous national ex- 
istence might have become very rich ami 
powerful. The Servians were the first 
of the Slavs who had embraced Chris- 
tianity. After the schism of Photius 
they hesitated for some time between 
Rome and Constantinople, and finally at- 
tached themselves to the Greek Church, 
while their neighbors, the Croats, re- 
mained Roman Catholics. Up to the 
tenth century they underwent many po- 
litical vicissitudes. They were subjects 
or vassals of the Greeks and the Bulga- 
rians until the day when one of their 
chiefs declared himself independent of 
the monarchies of Byzantium, and took 
the title of king, which his descendants 
bore after him. This Chief Simeon ab- 



dicated in 119,"), and became a monk, 
under the name of Stephen. lie had 
two sons; Stephen-the-First-Crowned, 
so called because he was the first Ser- 
vian prince who received the royal 
unction in 1217, who succeeded him, 
like his father went into a cloister 
toward the close of his days; the 
second son founded the national church 
of Servia. In 1346 Stephen Douchan, 
the Powerful, the ninth successor to the 
Servian monarchy, had brought under 
his domination the greater part of the 
Balkan peninsula, and carried his con- 
quering banners even to the gates of 
Constantinople, called himself "Tsar," 
and was recognized by the republic of 
Venice and by the Holy See. His son, 
who reigned after him, was assassinated 
in 1367, and in 1371 the crown passed 
to another family, — to the Prince Loza- 
rus of the Servian popular ballads. Un- 
der the reign of this Prince Lozarus 
the Turks, commanded by Murad II., 
gave battle to the Servians at Kossovo, 
on the 13th of June, 1389. Both the 
sultan and Lozarus were killed, and the 
Turks were victorious, and Servia lost 
her independence. 

The Servian throne was not over- 
turned, however, until 14.">!>, when 
Mahomet II. attacked Servia, and defi- 
nitely incorporated it with the Turkish 
Empire. The Slavs then seemed hope- 
lessly condemned to captivity and subju- 
gation. Servia disappeared from history 
until, after three centuries and a half of 
unwilling slavery, a heroic swineherd 
of the Servian mountains rose against 
the Turks, and led his followers to vic- 
tory. Becoming a true lender of the 
people, a wise and good dictator and 
prince, driving the Turks beyond the 
frontier, he was invested with supreme 
power, and reigned from 1804 to 1813. 
Then back came the Turks to drive out 



672 EUROPE IN STORM A.\~l> CM M. 

the newly installed government, and for a few years the most tremendous 

more than two years the unhappy popu- changes had taken place. Early in l.sTii 

lation was subjected to the most terrible the insurrectionists gained a victory 

excesses. Massacres and c ry torture over the Turks in Herzegovina. Then 

that Turkish vengeance could suggest came the scheme of reform presented by 

were the order of the daj T . In 1815 the Count Andrassy in favor of the insur- 

people rose again at the voice of Milosch, gents, and this was accepted by the sul- 

w lioui Russia supported as best she tan's government in February of 187(>. 

could, and after fifteen years' fighting the But in May came the news of the Bul- 

valiant little country succeeded in getting garian outrages, the terrible atrocities at 

its autonomy recognized by the Porte, Batak, the vengeance of the oppressor 

and by a firman of the same epoch the upon the oppressed before they could es- 

victor was declared hereditary Prince of cape from his tyranny. The massacres by 

Servia. To-day the country is an inde- the Circassians in Bulgaria were thor- 

pendent kingdom, recognized as such by oughly chronicled in the " Daily News," 

the treaty of Berlin in 1S7.S. and Prince the leading; liberal journal in London, by 

Milan, the cultivated and accomplished Mr. MacGahan, who investigated them 

ruler, was made king. Servia has a con- at the risk of his life, and told of them 

stitution according hereditary sover- with the simple eloquence of conviction, 

eignty, rendering ministers responsible What Mr. MacGahan saw in the Bulga- 

before the National Assembly, and giv- rian towns was enough to prove that. 

ing exercise of the legislative power sixty or seventy villages had been burned, 

simultaneously to the king and the pub- that fifteen or sixteen thousand people 

lie legislature, which meets annually, had been massacred, that among tin' 

The Senate of Servia has been trans- dead were thousands of women and 

formed into a Council of State, charged children, and the women had been oilt- 

with the " elaboration of the laws " pre- raged before death, and that there was 

pared by the general power above men- no provocation on the part of the Bul- 

tioned. garians, beyond their well-known desire 

With Bosnia, Herzegovina, Monte- for freedom, to prompt to such awful 

negro, and Servia in insurrection, al- carnage. 

most one-half of the vast and beauti- The horror ami commiseration which 

fill domain of Turkey in Europe was in the recital of these atrocities aroused in 

revolt, and it was easy to sec that the Europe were nowhere more pronounced 

movement would soon spread to Bui- than in England. There was a conference 

garia, and might (moss the Balkans, and at Berlin of the Emperors of Russia and 

go downward to Constantinople. The German} - , Bismarck and Count Andrassy 

tone of public sentiment in Russia also being present. They put their heads 

showed, even in these days of 1875, that together; the British (lectin the Medi- 

the advance of a liberating army through terranean was ordered to Besika Ray; 

Bessarabia and Roumania to the rescue Constantinople was in terror over the 

of the Christians in the south was not insurrection in Bulgaria, which, although 

among the impossibilities. Yet Europe it had been put down with such violence, 

went on in its blind, old, sleepy way. pro- was still a bugbear to tin' peace of Tur- 

claiming that there was nodangerof any key. The shrinking and incapable sul 

change in the situation, although within tan. Abdul A/.iz. was deposed at 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



673 



Constantinople, to perish miserably by 
his own ha ml, or, as some say, by hired as- 
sassins. Later on, Murad V., who suc- 
ceeded him, announced that the Turkish 
government was henceforth to grant the 
liberties of all. Europe smiled at the 
possibility of a Turkish Parliament. 

Meanwhile Disraeli took a jocular 
view of the massacres in Bulgaria, and 
announced that the British Government 
had taken measures lor the maintenance 
of peace. It was apparent, however, 
that there was to be no peace in the East 
until the Slavs had set themselves free. 
In June of 1>S7G Prince Milan of Servia 
left Belgrade and went to his army ou 
the frontier. The time had come, he 
said, to meet the Turk face to face. The 
situation of Servia was no longer toler- 
able, and with insurrection in Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, the Servian people 
must declare war. The Montenegrins 
joined their fortunes to Servia. The 
troops of these bold little States wen' 
at first defeated. But presently came 
another revolution at Constantinople. 
Murad V. was succeeded by Abdul 
Hamid II. All Europe was now turn- 
ing its gaze to the East : Russia was 
aiding the Servians, who. in a burst of 
enthusiasm, finally proclaimed Prince 
Milan King of Servia and Bosnia, — a 
proclamation which they had later on to 
see annulled by Act of Congress. Mr. 
Gladstone had plaeed himself on record 
as the uncompromising enemy of the 
Turkish executive power in Bulgaria, 
and in all other States. " Let the 
Turks," he said, " carry away their 
abuses in the only possible manner — by 
carrying off themselves." In the same 
address, in characterizing (he Turkish 
Government, he said, '-We may ran- 
sack the annals of the world, lint I know 
not what research can furnish us with 
so portentous an example of the fiendish 



misuse of the powers established by God 
for the punishment of evil-doers, and 
for the encouragement of them that do 
well. No government ever has so 
sinned, none has so proved itself incor- 
rigible in sin, or, which is the same, so 
impotent for reformation." As the Ser- 
vian war progressed the Czar of Russia 
made a proposition for the joint military 
occupation of Bosnia and Bulgaria; it 
was felt that Austria might presently 
appear on the scene; public feeling in 
Russia and Turkey was greatly excited ; 
finally, a short armistice between Servia 
and Turkey was exacted a( the instance 
of the Russian Government. Lord Salis- 
bury was sent on his famous journey to 
Constantinople, via I'ai is, Berlin, Vienna, 
and Rome, to get the views of the various 
governments on a proposed conference 
on the Eastern Question. During this 
journey Lord Salisbury satisfied himself 
of the truth of many things, none more 
interesting perhaps than that the Triple 
Alliance between the three great mili- 
tary empires of Russia, Germany, and 
Austria, decided on their respective lines 
of policy when war should break (ait in 
the East, had been consummated as 
early as 1*7:1. This must have caused 
some surprise when it was first made 
known in Europe, and threw a new light 
upon all the movements in the East. 
The leading features of the Berlin Treaty 
of 1878 had, it is said, been decide. 1 upon 
several years before the downward move- 
ment of the Russian armies toward 
Bulgaria. Lord Salisbury, although rep- 
resenting a pro-Turkish party in the 
English cabinet, was informed during 
his journey that the English Government 
hail decided that England would not 
" assent to or assist in coercive meas- 
ures, military or naval, against the Porte. 
The Porte must, on the other hand, be 
made to understand, as it has from the 



fi74 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



firsl been informed, that it can expect 
no assistance from England in the event 
of war." Had England used its influ- 
ence to coerce the Turk in those days, 
the succeeding campaigns, the entrance 
of Russia upon the scene, and her as- 



Meanwhile turn with me from tins 
contemplation of the progress of events 
in the East to recall a curious incident 
of the Herzegovinan insurrection, — a 
visit which 1 made in company with two 
or three other journalists to the in- 



sumption of predominating influence in surgents' camp, established among the 
Eastern Europe might have been checked almost inaccessible crags nut far from 
or averted. the coast, in the autumn of 1875. 



BUROVE IN STORM AND CALM. 



1)75 



C II AFTER SEVENTY-SEVEN. 



A Day willi a Vodvoda. 



An Insurgent Leader. — Among the Rocks. — A Picturesque Experience. — 
Turk and •Slav. — Ljubibratic and his Men. 



A S we rode down the little hill be- 
J^- tween Ragusa and Gravosa it 
suddenly occurred to us that twit one 
else had gone to sleep in the quiet of 
the warm Oetober afternoon, and that it 
was especially absurd to be starting upon 
a long and toilsome journey, when we 
could sit under the cliffs by the Adriatic 
and he lulled into delicious repose by the 
music of the blue waves breaking against 
the reddish-tinted rocks. The tiny villas 
nestling in the olive-groves seemed to 
blink sleepily at us as we passed ; the 
peasants lying curled up by the wayside 
in curiously picturesque heaps slept 
soundly; the boatmen huddled beneath 
the awnings of their small crafts were 
snoring in unison as we came to the ba- 
sin at Gravosa; the vast hills, which rose 
stern, stony, terrible in the distance, ap- 
peared to be dreaming in the tremulous 
autumn sunshine. In the cafe of Gra- 
vosa half-a-dozen stalwart mountaineers 
had hud aside their packs, and, burying 
their faces in their hands, were leaning 
forward upon the tallies. In the post- 
office the venerable clerk had doffed his 
heavy Austrian cap, laid his head against 
the wall near the wicket, and luxuriously 
closed his eyes. It was one of the clock 
in the afternoon in Dalmatia, and men 
who walked abroad, and seemed bent 
upon some errand at that hour sacred to 
sleep, would have been watched as dan- 
gerous had there been any one awake 
to watch them. 

The general sleepiness seemed to op- 



press us, although we had need of all 
our faculties at that moment. The driver, 
who appeared ready to fall from his seat, 
overcome with somnolence, pulled up 
his horses beneath the shade of a large 
tree, and we leaned back in the rickety 
carriage, and were fast yielding to temp- 
tation when we were aroused by the 
sharp, clear voice of our guide, who had 
been lingering behind. " We must go 
on to Ombla," he said. " The voivoda 
will soon follow us, and we must get, 
boats ready and lose no time when lie 
catches up with us, or we shall not reach 
the camp before dark. Anil strangers," 
— said our guide, Tomo, with a half-dis- 
dainful inflection upon the word, — 
•• strangers cannot pick their way among 
the Herzegovinan rocks after nightfall." 

•• Bui there will be a full moon," we 
ventured to remark. 

•■So much the worse for you," said 
Tomo, speaking slowly in the Italian, 
which was difficult for his Slavic tongue, 
but was the necessary vehicle of con- 
versation. "The moonlight might lead 
the gentlemen to break their necks. The 
moon plays queer tricks in these rocky 
tields. She makes one believe that there 
is solid stone where there is a yawning 
precipice. .She tries the eyes of the 
mountaineer, puts magical charms be- 
fore his gaze, and makes him lose his 
way. The gentlemen could not even 
walk among our crags and rocks in the 
moonlight. Better a thick darkness : then 
one is not dazed ; and one can grope." 



('.7(1 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



So sa3"ing, Tomo shouldered his gun. 
turned gracefully from us, and set out 
for Ombla. The driver impatiently leath- 
ered up his reins, murmuring, " Madre 
di hiii! when shall we be well rid of 
these Greeks ? " and we rattled along in 
Tomo's wake. 

A turn in the road just as wc seemed 
about to plunge into the Adriatic, a drive 
along a narrow causeway with an arm 
of the sea on one side and high stone 
walls and scraggy houses on the other, 
and at last we came to a square sur- 
rounded with low villas. A little alloy 
led down to the water-side. At the foot 
of three steps a large boat was moored. 
In the boat, lay its owner asleep. Here 
we were to await the voivoda. 

Picture to yourself a vast amphi- 
theatre of eolossal rocks rising majes- 
tically from blue water fringed with a 
few straggling decs. As far as the eye 
can reach hillward nothing but stones, 
bald, uncouth, tremendous, piled one 
upon another in confusion which no pen 
can describe. Here the walls which 
shut out the rich valleys and smiling 
tields beyond seem almost perpendic- 
ular. One cannot imagine that among 
them there are roadways, or even paths 
along which goats and their shepherds 
may stray. In the centre of the amphi- 
theatre are a lew scattered white cottages 
surrounding a mysterious rivulet which 
bubbles up from the rocks, and, after 
flowing in an impetuous current for a 
short distance, disappears again among 
them. It is a region from which there 
seems no outlet save that by which wc 
entered it, one narrow strip of winding 
load. Such is the basin of hill-guarded 
Ombla. 

Tlu coast of Dalmatia, at this point, 
where its mountains touch the frontier 
of Herzegovina,, is wonderfully rich in 
color. At early morning purple tints 



seem to lie lovingly upon the slopes and 
terraces of s'.one ; at noon great glorious 
waves of light break over them, and 
magically transform them into reddish- 
brown ruined castles, or deep gray mon- 
asteries, or pink or golden forests ; every- 
thing seems strange and supernatural. 
Late in the afternoon the shadows gather 
in the ten thousand nooks and crevices, 
and lend a forbidding aspect to the enor- 
mous barriers which seem to have some 
secret toguard, and to refuse admittance 
to the land beyond to the anxious wan- 
derer. One feels as if one were upon 
enchanted ground. 

Of the many routes which lead into 
Herzegovina from Ragusa, the near- 
est Dalmatian port, there is hut one 
which is in any sense practicable for 
even the rude wagons or the pack-mules 
used in the transportation of supplies to 
the Turkish fortresses. All the others 
lead through small villages perched 
among the mountains at points where a 
little soil and a few springs of fresh 
water are to he found. The unhappy trav- 
eller who should attempt alone to thread 
these comparatively unfrequented and 
absolutely labyrinthine paths would in- 
cur imminent risk of dying of exhaus- 
tion, or might fall a prey to the small 
banditti always hovering along the Aus- 
trian frontier, bidding defiance to the 
(je.ndurmes, or, if caught, pretending to 
be insurgents on the lookout for arms 
and ammunition. If the traveller be ac- 
companied by a stout, guide he will yet 
find himself many times on the point of 
succumbing to the dreadful fatigue which 
overcomes him as lie clambers inces- 
santly up, up. up, with little or no chance 
for repose, and with the sun's rays beat- 
ing down with terrific force upon his 
head. Those who have ever wandered 
along the side of Vesuvius under an 
August sunlight can in a faint degree 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



G77 



appreciate the terrors of a climbing 
joust in the mountains on the Herzego- 
vinan frontier. 

Our guide, Tomo, had many times told 
us of the dangers of the way; indeed, 
he took a certain malicious pleasure in 
depicting every horror, and in setting it 
in the most repulsive light. This he did 
not from any ill-will towards us, but from 
that natural instinct which leads the 
mountaineer and the sailor always to 
mock at those 1 who arc unaccustomed to 
precipices or to the sea. Our gay and 
cosmopolitan party, gathered from all 
corners of the world to witness the great 
struggle in progress in the autumn of 
1875 by the oppressed Christians against 
their oppressive Turkish masters, upon 
whom they hail finally turned with all 
the energy of men made desperate by 
long suffering, had been snugly en- 
camped in the garrison town of Ragusa 
for some days, patiently awaiting a sum- 
mons from one of the insurgent chiefs, 
camped nearthe Austrian border, to visit 
him. The committee of Slavs in Ra- 
gusa interested in the success of the in- 
surrection had forwarded to one of the 
camps a request that we should lie es- 
corted to the centre of operations, and 
introduced personally to the leaders who 
were fighting for freedom and for the 
maintenance of the Christian religion. 
Several times, a day had been appointed, 
and guides had been sent to meet us, 
but before we had left Ragusa news had 
arrived that the insurgents had broken 
camp and were on a forced march of 
many days. Thus we had waited in un- 
certainty, until one morning we were in- 
formed that the main body of the rebels, 
twenty-five hundred strong, was en- 
camped in the almost inaccessible vil- 
lage of Grebzi, in a corner of Herze- 
govina, within a few hours' march of 
Ragusa. Footsore, exhausted, and with 



ammunition-boxes nearly empty, this lit- 
tle army had resolutely placed its picket 
lines within half an hour's march of a 
formidable Turkish fortress, and had 
determined to study the situation before 
proceeding farther. The chiefs held a. 
meeting, and decided to send their leader, 
(lie voivoda, a stern, brave, well-edu- 
cated man, named Ljubibratic, to Ragusa, 
that he might, during his brief visit, get 
some idea of the opinion of the outside 
world concerning the struggle. The voi- 
voda came from his fortress to Ragusa. ; 
there we met him and were invited to 
return with him to the rock-surrounded 
camp of Grebzi. The invitation was ac- 
cepted. The news, speedily bruited abroad 
in Kagusa,so astonished the Turkish con- 
sul that he quite forgot his dignity, and 
calling on us one by one, entreated us 
•' not to risk our lives among the ruf- 
fians ; " not " to believe the hundred lies 
we were sure to hear from the Greeks ;" 
and, finally, not to give the insurgents 
any details relative to the positions of 
Turkish forces which we had seen during 
a recent journey made on the high road 
to Trebigne, an important Turkish post. 
We fancied that we could detect a twin- 
kle of malice in the consul's eye as he 
deprecatingly bade us good-by when he 
found that we were determined to ven- 
ture among the insurgents, and it did not 
require a, lively imagination to picture 
him sending a messenger in hot haste to 
the nearest Mahometan fort, advising 
its commander to intercept us, and not 
only capture the wandering voivoda., but. 
(ait off the heads of his companions. An 
encounter with a Turkish patrol was 
among the possibilities, but we dismissed 
the unpleasant thought of it from our 
minds, as we stood looking at the sombre 
and precipitous banks of Ombla, and 
concentrated our attention upon the ex- 
act ing task before us. 



678 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CAl V. 



Meantime the voivoda, with his little 
body-guard of tall, lithe Herzegovinans, 
well armed with trusty, although ancient 
rifles, with yataghans taken from the 
bodies of dead Turks, and with pistols 
half a yard long, was supposed to be 
plodding on from Ragusa to overtake 
us, and at Ombln we wire all to starl 
together for the mountain ascent. An 
hour passed ; the boatman awoke, rolled 
and lighted a cigarette, swore a gentle 
oath, looked at the sun, then at us, and 
shrugged his shoulders ; novoivoda came. 
Another hour passed, during which the 
boatman and Tomo, besides continually 
consuming cigarettes, now and then I mist 
into violent invectives; still novoivoda 
came, 'the Frenchman in ourpartysang 
a song; the Italian fumed and fretted; 
the Slavic professor maintained an at- 
titude expressive of mild astonishment ; 
the Russian agent, sent to dispense 
moneys and charities, frowned tremen- 
dously, and hinted that (he voivoda was 
not as good as his word ; and we two 
Americans looked from one to the other 

of the members of the eccentric group, 
and then glanced along the dusty road 
down which the voivoda was expected. 

There he was! An old man, almost 
grovelling in the dust, was kissing his 
hand, worshipping in him the would-be 
liberator of his race. Surely, the voi- 
voda was a romantic and impressive fig- 
ure as he strode a few steps ahead of his 
guard through the village. The hybrid 
Slavo-ltalian children bowed and courte- 
sied : the nut-brown maidens blushed 

and cast down their eves; the old 
women shrieked with delight, " Voivoda ! 
voivoda! Now may Heaven Mess and 
preserve you many years, ever good 
voivoda, our only trust, our all !" The 
affection, the earnest adoration, were 
almost painful to witness. The men-at- 
arms grinned with delight and strutted 



with martial air. Handsome fellows 
were they, with long, coal-black hair 
and mustaches, with noble necks and 
chests, sinewy and symmetrical limbs. 
Their teeth were like pearls, their eyes 
were bright, their gait was elastic. In- 
voluntarily they glanced at us. then at 
the rocks overhanging Onibla, and then 
they shook" their heads. We felt chal- 
lenged to put forth our best efforts on 
the march, and nerved ourselves ac- 
cordingly. 

Voivoda Ljubibratic looked like an 
ancient Servian king stepped out of the 
margin of some illuminated manuscript 
of Stephen Douchan's time. He wore 
the costume of the people of Servia, 
among whom he had lived nearly all 
his life, although he was Herzegovinan 
born. A green tunic, witli loosely-flow- 
ing sleeves, was girt about his waist with 
a simple belt, in which there were no 
weapons. At his side hung a line sabre 
of modern make, the symbol of his au- 
thority. His leggins and his opank&s, 
or slippers, were of line material, but 
much worn and frayed by long marches 
in tlie rocky by-ways. Beneath the tunic 

his ample chest was covered by a Ser- 
vian jacket, richly embroidered with gold 

and silver. I lis face, exceptionally fine 
in repose, bore an expression of simple 
good-humor when animated : a lofty 
brow, only partly shaded by a Monte- 
negrin cap ; tine eyes, which had a sin- 
gular fashion of looking out and away 
from present objects, as if their owner 
were continually endeavoring to exam- 
ine the future ; a sensitive mouth and a 
noble brown beard, were the conspicuous 
features. One instinctively felt proud 
to take the voivoda by the hand. 

This title of "voivoda " was not the 
exclusive property of our friend Ljubi- 
bratic. In the camp at Grebzi were half- 
a-dozen other chieftains who. from the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



679 



fact that they commanded large bodies 
of men. were privileged to employ the 
same prefix to their names; but, recog- 
nizing the fact that there must be only 
one supreme authority, they had vested 
it in Ljubibratio, and had permitted him 
to be recognized in all the country round 
as the voivoda. I have endeavored to 
give the singular name the English 
spelling which most resembles its sound 
when it is pronounced by the .Slavs 
themselves. In Servia there are five 
grand territorial divisions called voi- 
vodies, created for convenience in 
grouping the militia of the country, and 
the leaders of the troops are called 
voivods. 

As soon as he could free himself from 
the exuberant caresses of the people in 
the village the voivoda beckoned the 
boatman to approach. The obsequious 
fellow doffed his hat, and came running 
up the stone steps, muttering compli- 
ments in his Italian dialect. ■' Set us 
across at yonder point," said the voivoda, 
pointing to along, ragged promontory of 
stone some distance below the little white 
houses of Ombla. " And remember," 
he added in liquid Italian, which he spoke 
far better than the boatman himself, 
" let no one in the village say whither we 
have gone or how many we are." lie 
laid his hand heavily on the boatman's 
shoulder. The brown hand of the Italian 
came up to his breast and made a sign as 
of complete subordination to the voivo- 
da's will. We hastened into the boat, 
and were soon on the opposite sin ire. As 
we began to climb among the rocks two 
rough-looking fellows, the very counter- 
parts of the Italian brigands we have all 
so often seen in operas, arose mysteri- 
ously from behind a crag, and. without 
even deigning to notice our party of 
strangers, clad in the ugly, civilized 
clothes which are looked upon with such 



contempt in the Levant, set off at a sharp 
pace ahead of ns. 

The voivoda was thoughtful. The sun 
was pouring great floods of scorching 
heat down upon the bare stones, but he 
seemed oblivious alike of the warmth and 
of the mighty ascent. He lounged slowly 
behind all the others, rolling cigarettes 
in an indolent, thoughtful way, as every 
one does in these Eastern countries, and 
now and then stopping to take a long 
look at the Turkish frontier, which we 
could see as soon as we had climbed to 
the top of the first ridge. lie seemed to 
be studying every rock, as if calculating 
how all these mute forces could be turned 
into agents to aid in destroying the op- 
pressive Mahometans. 

If seemed like tempting Providence to 
climb such awful heights under a burn- 
ing sun. There were moments when the 
courage of our party gave way during 
th" first half-hour, and we determined to 
return. We looked up; there towered 
the mighty, bald masses, unutterably 
grand, silent, severe ; there seemed no 
way through them or around or beneath 
them. We looked down, and we saw 
the blue waters of the inlet at Ombla, the 
boatmen tranquilly rowing in the breezy 
waves or lying luxuriously stretched out 
beneath their awnings as their little craft 
rocked to and fro, and we were anxious 
to get down to safe ground again. The 
thought of night among these mountains 
seemed almost frightful to us. But we 
rose ami staggered along. 

Suddenly we tinned a sharp corner 
and came to a rocky ledge, from which 
we had a glorious view of the tranquil 
Adriatic. How beautiful was the sea, 
girdling the little dun-colored islets and 
setting boldly in to the romantic inden- 
tations of the coast! Miles below, on 
the Dalmatian shore, we could see here 
and there a chape] lonely upon a hill- 



li.sn 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



-ill", or :i ilark clump of olive trees, or 
a little village clinging to the rocks out 
of which it. was Imilt. We turned from 
the sea with a sigh, and clambered once 
mi ire. 

Tomo, the guide, reminded me much 
of those stalwart bronze-colored men 
whom I had seen in the Indian Territory, 
those still splendid types of the fading 
Cherokee and Choctaw races He had 
the same graceful quickness of limb, the 
same stern repose of feature, the same 
contempt for fatigue. He never sal 
down to rest : he was in perpetual move- 
ment. It we came by chance to a little 
terrace "here some miserable peasant 
had taken advantage of half an acre of 
untrustworthy soil to grow a straggling 
vineyard, he did not stretch his limbs in 
the shade of the vines, as we did; 1ml 
he leaped from rock to rock, he vaulted 
lightly across a chasm, clambered up a 
peak, ran for a. few yards, Stood poised 
almost as if he were about to fly away 
like a bird. Sometimes lie sang a rude, 
hut not unmusical song, in which hi' was 
joined by two Montenegrins who were 
with us. and who kept time to the refi aiu 
by brandishing their weapons as they 
walked. Tomo constantly came to us, 
encouraging us. speaking kind words in 
his Italian patois: "Courage! the worsl 
is over. You \\ ill soon be at a little vil- 
lage where von can rest. Ancliamo!" 

A Her an hour's climbing we found our- 
selves on a huge shelf from which we 
could look out hundreds of yards over 
the rocky field in every direction. Tin' 
voivoda came to us and smilingly 
pointed to a dark, round mass on the 
horizon, which, as birds fly, would have 
been scarcely a quarter of a mile distant, 
Imt which could have been reached in 
these terrible mountains only by the 
high-road from Ragusa, or by several 
hours of clambering at the risk of one's 



neck. A second glance at the mass 
showed that it was a fortification which 
we had seen many times before, — the 
round, picturesque fort of Czarino, 
on the Turkish frontier. AVith the aid 
of our field-glasses we could see figures 
moving about on the ramparts, and the 
Russian agent insisted that they, too, 
were sweeping the sky with glasses, 
and that they saw us. 

'•What matter':" said the voivoda 
serenely. " We may sit here and make 
mouths at our enemies : we are on Aus- 
trian territory, and they dare not lire on 
us ; and as to their sending a patrol it, 
could not. even leave the fort without 
being signalled to our people at Grebzi 
and down to us here before the Turks 
could have got will nalcrway. There 
are men in that, fort who know these 
mountain ways : they were brought up 
in Herzegovina; they are renegades 
to their religion and to their race; they 
are the last men to venture out among 
the precipices so near nightfall ; and as 
for the Asiatic portion of the garrison 
there is no danger that it will come to 
us, for ii is quaking with terror in antici- 
pation of an attack upon tiie walls of 
Czarino this very night." And the 
voivoda tranquilly lighted another cigar- 
ette. 

This tort of Czarino occupies an al- 
most isolated crag, about half an hour's 
rule from the city of Ragusa. It domi- 
nates the only practicable route from 
southern Austria, into Herzegovina 
and the other provinces subject to 
Turkey. The insurgents persisted in 
hovering near it, although (here was 
but little chance of .securing it. " If 
I had but two batteries of mountain 
artillery!" sighed the voivoda. "lint 
we have nothing, not even ammunition 
enough to light a good battle." He 
turned away in silence, and the Russian 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 



681 



agent, began to say comforting words, 
and to hint at the support which would 
be mysteriously forthcoming at the 
proper time. 

Crawling, scrambling, leaping, our 
heads dizzy, our shoulders and limbs 
lame, we finally came to a plateau, at 
whose farther extremity, under the 
shadow of a rocky hill, we saw a little 
village. There were a, few green trees. 
and low one-story houses, miserably 
thatched, and heaped about with stones. 
A ragged population tame out to meet 
us. The womeu were mainly engaged 
in carrying heavy burdens, fagots of 
wood or bundles of grain, on their 
heads. Incessant toil had taken away 
most of their enthusiasm ; they merely 
courtesied as the voivoda passed. The 
men greeted the chief with effusive 
friendship and reverence. Although 
still in Austria, Ljubibratic felt thor- 
oughly at home here, because the people 
were of the same race, religion, and 
sentiment as the ignorant and oppressed 
Herzegovinans over the border. As 
we stepped in upon the circle of a stone 
threshing-floor, and sat down lo drink 
from a gourd, and to bathe our swollen 
hands, torn and bruised with grasping 
the rocks, a noble and statuesque old 
man, fully six feet and a half in height, 
came forward to greet the voivoda. 
This venerable man was as erect and 
stately as lie had been at twenty-five ; 
his eyes were dim, but he still had a 
firm gait and a noble port, although lie 
had seen ninety years. His tine head 
was enveloped in a voluminous red 
turban, but the rest of his garments 
were little better than rags. This was 
the chief of the village, and he held a 
long and animated conversation with 
the voivoda, urging him, so said Tomo, 
I he guide, to do some daring act which 
should so compromise the Slavic popu- 



lation in Austria that they would be 
compelled to join in the struggle against, 
the Turks. When the old man had 
finished his remarks he gravely kissed 
the hand of the voivoda, and retired, 
saluting us with staid, solemn gestures. 

From the village to the camp at Grebzi 
there were yet two hours of vigorous 
climbing and scrambling to be under- 
gone, and we made but a brief halt. 
The avant-couriers who had joined us 
at Ombla had not halted at all, lint were 
now lost to sight beyond the jutting 
stones on the horizon. As we left the 
collection of miserable hovels villagers 
crowded on the steps of the voivoda, 
some proffering complaints that his men 
had robbed them of kids or goats ; others 
that lie did not make decisive move- 
ments enough; yet others that he al- 
lowed strangers — alluding to us — lo 
come into the country and to discover his 
forces. To all these he replied by scorn- 
ful waves of the hand, or now and then 
by loud, imperious commands of silence. 
We soon left the grumblers behind, and 
were once more alone with the rocks. 

But presently, as the hour of sunset 
approached, we encountered large flicks 
of goats coming down from (heir dubious 
pasturage of the day to their folds for the 
night. Sometimes the only practicable 
route was not large enough to permit of 
the passage of our party and a. flock of 
goats also. A leader of the horned ami 
bearded denizens of the mountains would 
eye us for a few moments, as if he con- 
templated giving battle, but, after a. sur- 
vey of our numbers, would turn back 
with an angry snort and a choleric stamp 
of his fore feet. More than once I climbed 
a high rock with a view of protecting 
myself from the possible attacks of these 
wild goats, that rebel even against (he 
rough mountaineers who own them. 

Night came suddenly. The rocky 



682 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 

ways became obscure; one looked up came a peculiar hail, along, low cry. In a 
in surprise to find the sky darkening moment it was repeated. Thenitwasan- 
above him ; there seemed n<> slow, in- swered from our side, and also repeated, 
sidious approach of twilight, as in lower Presently, from the left, came a similar 
regions. We quickened our pace. The hail, similarly answered by our men, 
body-guard scattered hither and yon, and who had gone in that direction. In a 
no longer chattered in the smoothly moment more the rocks all around us 
flowing Slavic Our party, French, Ital- swarmed with armed men. who jumped 
ian, Russian, American, was oppressed down joyously, crying, "Voivoda! voi- 
and overwhelmed by the coming dark- voda!" Many of them crowded around 
ness. The rocks took on fantastic shapes : him, kissing his hands and the hem of 
a belated shepherd a little way off seemed his garment, while others entered into 
to us like a pinnacle overhanging the a noisy explanation of the events which 
narrow path, and half-a-dozen pinnacles had occurred since his departure. Sooth- 
looked like Mahometan soldiers wait- ing and quieting them as if they had been 
inn to tire upon us as we passed. "\Ye children, he led the way. calling us to 
descended into a valley, then wearily follow, across a terribly rugged patch of 
climbed another ridge. Nowhere now rocks a mile or two long, then down a 
was there visible a tree or clump of fo- lane walled in on either side, and intl'O- 
liage or minutest shrub; nowhere any- duced us without warning to one of the 
thing save rocks, — rocks on all sides, most unique spectacles that mv eyes 
On the top of the ridge the guards halted, have ever rested upon. 
< hie of them sat down and listened in- The lane terminated abruptly on a 
tently. The voivoda, who now preceded ledge from which we looked down into 
us, motioned us to halt. Parties of the a cup set in the hills, and guarded on 
insurgents moved to the left and the every hand by a succession of rolling 
right. At last the voivoda seated him- valleys filled with jagged masses of stone. 
self on a convenient stone, and calling In this deep, cup-shaped space a large 
to us, and pointing down into a second number of little camp-fires were burn- 
valley, now almost concealed in the rap- inn, and flitting to and fro among them 
idly deepening shadows, and then to the we could sec stalwart men armed to the 
rugged ghostly hills beyond, he said, teeth. A loud hum, the echo of the 
"Gentlemen, welcome to mv domain! noisy conversation around the fires, 
You are in the Herzegovina." drifted up to our cars. Here and there, 

Nowhere was there sight or sound of where the flame burned out brightly, we 
camp. The waste seemed untenanted, could see small, ugly, black cottages. 
Our hearts sank as we imagined a. lone Away off among the rocks we heard 
night-journey to the village among the the monotonous refrain of a song, doubt- 
rocks. We rose with the energy of de- less sung by some warrior, who in halt- 
spair when the voivoda invited us (o con- ing rhythm was celebrating his exploits 
tinue the route to Grebzi. Where were of the past week or of the day. 
the insurgent forces? The transition from the solemn and 

We began to descend into the valley, awful calm of the Herzegovinan high- 
Here there was a. narrow path of smooth lands — the calm which we hail felt with 
stones. We had none but a few steps such terrific force just as the curtain of 
when from the bosom of the rocks there darkness was linallv drawn — to this half- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



683 



joyous, hall-savage vivacity of the camp 
and the village, was almost repulsive. 
There seemed something weird, super- 
natural iu it. We dreaded to go down, 
lest we might find that we had ventured 
u|>on a Walpurgis Night, or some dread- 
ful assemblage of sorcerers from below. 
There was, however, just at this moment 
a smart commotion in the camp: hasty 
words were heard ; there was a rattle 
of arms ; men ran to and fro ; and a few 
careless shots were tired. 

•■ What is it, Tomo?" we asked of the 
guide. 

" It is the voivoda's arrival," he said. 
11 Probably some one on an out-of-the- 
way peak saw us coming, and rushed in 
to give an alarm, thinking it might be 
the enemy ; but now our men have ar- 
rived and the mistake is corrected, and 
we shall all be welcome. You will see ;" 
and Tomo bristled with pride and stroked 
his long black mustaches. 

We did see. The voivoda sprang 
lightly down from the ledge, — it seemed 
as if he were leaping from a high preci- 
pice into an abyss, — but he landed safely 
on a rock below, then upon another, and 
we followed him. Tomo shouted to us 
to keep in the background till he came, 
as strange faces might not please some 
of the more ignorant of the insurgents ; 
but our curiosity spurred us on, and 
we strode along a narrow village street, 
flanked on either side by one-story stone 
hovels. Suddenly a torch Bared up. ami 
a group of noble and impressive-looking 
men approached. The voivoda hastened 
toward the elder and graver of the two 
foremost, and the pair embraced, kiss- 
ing each other repeatedly. He then 
gave the same affectionate greeting to 
all the others, and, after some hurried 
conversation, introduced us to Peko 
Pavlovic, the renowned and terrible 
slayer of Turks, and director of the 



movements of a large part of the 
forces. 

The first instinctive movement, on 
hearing Peko's name, was one of repul- 
sion, for he had been described to us, 
even by his ardent admirers, as a demon 
incarnate, a species of Hans of Iceland, 
breathing out slaughter, delighting in the 
mutilation of the bodies of his victims, 
and cherishing the most fiendish malice. 
In the early days of the insurrection Peko 
had established at Slivnitza — a camp 
not far from Grebzi — a "reliquary," 
where the heads of Turks slain iu battle 
were kept as ghastly trophies. A young 
Russian officer informed me that he had 
visited this reliquary, and that Peko ex- 
hibited to him with the greatest pride the 
corpse of a Turkish officer, which iiad 
been carried away from some skirmish- 
field, and was kept there that the insur- 
gents might gloat over the corruption of 
(heir enemy's body. 

A moment after we had looked on Peko 
our repulsion had vanished. He is a 
nobly formed Montenegrin of the heroic 
type, pretty well past the flower of his 
middle life. His face is as clearly cut as 
that of a handsome woman ; his brows 
shade a pair of deep, sombre eyes, with 
nothing whatever murderous in their 
glance. His thin lips are shaded by a 
broad black mustache : his massive 
chin, his square jaw, give evidence of 
strength of will and character. His 
mighty chest was sheathed in a >ilver 
jacket of mail, the front of which was 
very elaborately ornamented. This bit 
of mediasval splendor, of which most 
of the Montenegrin chiefs are very fond, 
must have cost Peko a pretty penny. To 
describe his weapons would be merely to 
puzzle the leader: suffice it to say that 
in his girdle he wore nearly a dozen 
small-arms, and that on the march he 
invariably carries a rifle, which he uses 



684 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



unerringly. Peko has till the befitting 
qualities of a chief save education : he 
is ignorant, and the voivoda, although 
U'ss versed than Peko in the science of 
mountain warfare, lias frequently saved 
him from blunders into which he would 
have rushed, compromising the whole 
insurrection in the eves of neighboring 
nations. When the voivoda first came 
from Belgrade to Herzegovina to start 
the rebellion against the Turks. Peko 
was sent out by the Prince of Mon- 
tenegro to check him, and to warn him 
th.it the time was not yet. Peko met 
Ljubibratic, and told him bis mission ; 
lint (lie voivoda would not listen to per- 
suasion. Upon this Peko seized Ljubi- 
bratic, had him bound hand and foot 
and conveyed to the frontier, and lie 
went to see that the orders were obeyed. 
But on the way to the Austrian border 
Ljubibratic succeeded in persuading Peko 
that the insurrection in Herzegovina 
was ripe and should be begun, and that 
the Prince of Montenegro ought to lie 
prevailed upon to aid it, at least tacitly. 
Peko at once ordered the voivoda's hands 
to he unloosed, returned with him to a 
camp, joined the insurgents, and ac- 
knowledged his late prisoner as his com- 
mander-in-chief. Since that time he had 
implicitly followed the lead of the voi- 
voda in general matters, venturing only 
now and then to differ in regard to the 
Conduct of an expedition or the treat- 
ment of a captured enemy. 

Peko is still a force in Herzegovina 
against the Turks. He rushes down 
from the mountains with a little band 
and annihilates a convoy, beheads 
an aga or a hey, or throws hall'-a- 
dozeu soldiers over a precipice, before 
the Astonished Moslems can say a 
prayer. He kills with frenzy, but 
behind all his apparent barbarity there 
is a fixed motive. lie is one of the 



most forcible human expressions of 
the four-hundred-year period of hate 
of the Montenegrin for the Turk that 
1 have ever seen. He has given his 
whole body and soul to the task of driv- 
ing the Moslems from the countries 
which they have so lone oppressed, and 
he will labor mercilessly to that end 
until his dying day. 

Peko and his fellow-chiefs, Herzego- 
vina!) and Montenegrin, erected us 
kindly. Luca Petcovic, one of the most 
noted of the elder chief tains, wasabsent, 
but there were others whose scais and 
the renown of whoso exploits entitled 
them to notice, who wandered with us 
about the camp, explaining, through the 
joyous and willing Tomo, everything 
which we did not understand. As it 
was not thought wise to attempt an ex- 
planation of the mission of journalists 
to the common soldiers we were intro- 
duced to the group as gentlemen who 
bad come to inspect- the " Italian squad- 
ron," which was proving itself a most 
efficient aid to the insurrection ; ami un- 
der these borrowed colors we succeeded 
in obtaining a cordial welcome from every 
one. The warriors left off their whining, 
monotonous chants as we approached, 
and rose to greet us courteously. Two 
men were despatched to a spring, which 
was a long distance from the camp, for 
water, which they transport in these 
mountain regions in pig-skins, as they 
do also in Spain ; and two or three other 
stout fellows, having slaughtered a 
sheep and dressed it, spitted the animal 
on an old sabre, and were soon roasting 
it. whole before a cheerful lire. Having 
no longer any lens to stand on, we sank 
down, a tired and demoralized group, 
upon some rocks near the hut in which 
the Italians were quartered, ami watched 
the warriors as t hey came and went, or as 
they stood indolently smoking their long 



EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 



685 



pipes and listening in a half-suspicious, 
half-amused manner to the jargon of 
English, French, and Italian which 
echoed from our party. 

Noble men physically, these warriors, 
— the best products of Herzegovina; 
yet men so abased by centuries of op- 
pression that they were, hopelessly igno- 
rant, and were bringing up their children 
in ignorance. Shapely, cleanly men, of 
fine instincts, one would say; no Ion 
cunning in their faces ; not men to knock 
a traveller on the head, like a Sicilian 
or Corsican mountaineer, but men who 
needed only a chance at development to 
improve it. They had sent all their 
wives and children over the Austrian 
border, where they would be sal'e from 
the murderous vengeance of the Turks 
and of (hose fanatical Slavs who long 
ago renounced the Christian religion for 
Mohammedanism; and they felt free to 
fight. My heart went out to these down- 
trodden, misunderstood •• nivalis," — 
these men who might at any time be 
hampered in their struggles for freedom 
by the intrigues of greater nations near 
them, — these men who followed so will- 
ingly and obeyed so implicitly their 
voivoda, and who looked upon him as a 
demi-god. 

Not a house in this village camp of 
Grebzi had a chimney ; the two or three 
hovels into which we ventured were so 
filled with smoke from the tires on tin' 
hearths that we were compelled to re- 
treat. The furniture was of the simplest 
description. There were no beds, but 
low stone couches, like those one sees in 
houses in Pompeii; on these straw and 
blankets were spread. Chairs, tables, 
and such luxuries evidently had never 
been heard of at Grebzi. It was a mis- 
erable little village, forlorn, in the crags. 
Before the women and children, who cul- 
tivate the fields, had tied, it might have 



been just tolerable to look at; hut even 
then it must have appeared barbarous. 
We were lodged that night in a house 
which, as the voivoda assured us with a 
smile, was once the home of a wealthy 
fanner. It consisted of three rooms un- 
der one thatched roof. Two of the rooms 
were perhaps half a story higher than 
the third, and in those we slept. The 
inner one resembled a cellar; its floor 
of stone was littered with si raw ; [ightwas 
admitted through two small apertures in 
an immensely thick wall, and the door 
was scarcely high enough to admit any 
one of us. In the outer room a 'ire 
smouldered on the hearth, and the smoke 
wandered into vwvy corner. A few 
wooden bowls, trenchers, one or two rude 
knives, an iron wash-basin, and a eanip- 
stool made in Ragusa, were the only 
articles of furniture we could discover. 
These had contented the wealthy farmer 
all his life, Tomo said with a grin, as he 
arranged our sleeping-room : why should 
we ask for more ? 

Before we retired to this abode of lux- 
ury the chiefs came in friendliest fashion 
to mm' us partake of the supper which 
had been prepared for us. I was much 
amused at the manner in which the men 
who were delegated to serve us managed 
their apologies for a lack of numerous 

necessary articles, such as salt, bread, 
etc Each of them would approach the 
voivoda respectfully and demand per- 
mission to whisper in his ear. He would 
then very privately communicate his in- 
telligence to the voivoda, who in his turn 
would inform us that there was no salt 
or bread to be had. Thereupon, our 
cooks, with a bow to us, would withdraw 
with a contented air, as a good ho 
wife does iii America after she has ma- 
ligned her own cookery in the presence 
of her guests, and given a hundred 
reasons why it is worse than usual. 



68H EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

\Y "e were too weary to eat much, hut upon their toilets ; upon the breasts of 

we drank refreshing draughts of thecool Peko and one or two of his companions 

water, and made our way speedily to the Russian medals glittered. The sun's 

cellar-room, where we lay down upon rays threw a halo around the picturesque 

the straw with Tomo as guard in front little group, and for a moment the sheen 

of the door, stretched out with his head of the weapons worn by all was dazzling. 

in the smoke. The arrival of a Turkish The voivoda, in his green tunic, and with 

battalion could hardly have succeeded his fine head bared to the morning breeze, 

in awakening ns. and the innumerable was a noble figure. Each chief as be 

wood-lice and bugs native to the locality delivered his opinion stood up in the 

only did it once. middle of the circle and spoke in low, 

It was dawn at three o'clock. Tomo, solemn tones, sometimes gravely ges- 

building the fire, aroused us. In a few ticulating with his pipe. Only one or 

minutes he brought us cups of hot, fra- two of the men showed signs of anger 

grant coffee, made in the Turkish fash- or excitement, and that was when they 

ion. We seemed endowed with new pointed to the mountain ridge beyond 

strength: our fatigues of yesterday were which the Turks were encamped in their 

forgotten. The cool air rushing in fortresses. 

through the stone aperture which served The twenty-five hundred insurgents 
for a window was inspiring. In an hour were busy polishing their arms, prepar- 
more the camp was astir. Warriors who ing their coffee, — which appeared to be 
had sung persistently until the small the only breakfast that they took, — and 
hours appealed fresh and prepared for singing, or rather crooning, their monot- 
war. We went, down into the streets or onoiis melodies. A small party was de- 
lanes, and soon met the voivoda walk- tailed to cross the Austrian frontier and 
iug leisurely to and fro, with his hands descend to the town of Ragusa for the 
clasped behind him. '-The council of bread, furnished by an " insurrectionary 
war is called for six o'clock.'' he said, committee" composed of sympathetic 
" and you must see it. Only, pray do not Slavs, whose breach of neutrality was 
come too near to it. as some chief might winked at by the Austrian government, 
fancy his sense of dignity Offended." Toward seven o'clock the sentries who 

We promised, and at six. as the hills had been watching all night on the peaks 

all around resounded to the pipes of the round about the camp came in weary 

shepherds who were leading their Hocks and famished with hunger, and reported 

of goats to their favorite pasturage, we that they had left others in their places. 

climbed to a little eminence where grew As soon as the council broke up. hun- 

soine grass and a few stunted trees. dreds of men pressed about the chiefs. 

There a. dozen chiefs were seated in a anxious to learn their decision: and a 

circle, with the voivoda in the centre, joyous shout, which would not have been 

Their gravity was as stern ami nurelent- at all relished by the Turks had they 

ing as that of our Indians. Most of the heard it, announced that another march 

men were smoking, but the Herzegovi- and an offensive movement had been 

nan rarely lays aside his pipe save when resolved upon. 

he sleeps or lights. It is second nature Then came the gathering of the eorn- 
to him to smoke. The Montenegrin panics. There was no pretence at a tor- 
chiefs had bestowed some little attention mal review: the nature of the ground 



EUROPE I\ STORM AND CALM. 



687 



would not have permitted it, and the 
men were hardly well enough disciplined 
for it. They needed no training: they 
followed their leaders blindly, and fought 
desperately, in the Herzegovinan fash- 
ion, from behind the rooks and ledges, 
as long as their ammunition lasted, and 
then they retreated. The voivoda pasaed 
from group to group of the insurgents, 
talking cheerfully and familiarly with 
all : then he dismissed them with a wave 
of his hands, and tinned to us, saying, 
•• These men will march all through to- 
night, fight all day to-morrow, clamber 
among the rocks for hours after the bat- 
tle, ami will go without food and water 
for twenty-four hours at a time. If they 
but had modern nuns and plenty of am- 
munition ! " 

The testimony of a young French offi- 
cer who had joined the insurgent forces, 
and who was proving a very efficient aid 
to the voivoda, was that these men fought 
well, and even with skill, seeming by in- 
stinct to understand many things in war- 
fare which men of other countries must 
learn. Every one of them had regis- 
tered a solemn vow that he would never 
quit the field until the Turks were driven 
from Herzegovina or he were dead: 
and all have kept their word. The in- 
surrection became a war; the voivoda 
was unluckily divested of his command 
by the tyrannical action of the Austrian 
government officials, who perhaps feared 
that the Slavs in Austrian territory 
might be urged to imprudent interven- 
tion in Turkish affairs by the influence 
of his splendid example; hut neither 
Peko nor any of the other chiefs, nor any 
humblest Herzegovinan. will ever forget 
that to the voivoda Ljubibratic, the leader 
and master, was the first great movement 
for freedom in Herzegovina due. 

Noon came, and the insurgents pre- 
pared to break camp. We set out upon 



our return journey. The voivoda gave 
us an escort, and himself accompanied 
us to a point near the frontier. Leaning 
against a huge rock he talked for an 
hour in his grave, stern way of his hopes, 
his fears, his ambitions. For merciless 
war to the Turk he was fully inclined : he 
felt that he had men enough, but no 
proper arms, and but little moral support 
from the outside world, "We shall 
make no concessions," he said simply. 
" and we will never lav down our arms." 
I am glad to note that the veteran Peko 
has carried out these principles to the 
letter. 

Ljubibratic looked heroic, as he stood 
with his arms folded across his massive 
chest, and with his figure braced against 
the bowlder, which rose gigantic, casting 
a shadow over us all as we gazed upon 
him. It was by no means an agreeable 
task for a man of his culture and breed- 
ing to go back to daily association with 
and constant peril among the rough 
men in the camp behind him, — to the 
petty dissensions of the chiefs and the 
squalid huts on the rocky hills, — but he 
never wavered for an instant before that 
which he conceived to be his duty. It 
was evident that the men felt lost with- 
out his constant presence, for he had not 
been with us long before little squads 
followed him from the village and tried 
in a hundred ways to attract his atten- 
tion. When his hour's talk was finished 
he saluted our whole party with that dig- 
nified and friendly kiss upon both cheeks 
which is so universal a form of salutation 
in Servia and in many of the adjacent 
provinces. We bade him good-by, and 
fell to scrambling Ragusa-ward over the 
rocks. At a descent in the path we 
turned, and saw him still standing with his 
eyes fixed upon us. He waved his hand ; 

we responded with shouts, then descended 
iuto the valley, and saw him no more. 



6S» EUROPE IN STULIM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-EN J I IT. 

The Montenegrins. — Tlie Inhabitants of the Black Mountain. An Unconqncrcd Race. — Among the 
Rocks. — The [mplacable Enemies of the Turks. — A Y;ili:iut Litilo Army. — The Montenegrin 
Women. — The < lid Prince-Bishops of Montenegro. 

I SAW my first Montenegrin as I was ing trousers; on his feet were the 

leaving the pretty port of Spalatro, opantes, or cowhide sandals, of his 

on tli.' Adriatic sea, for Ragusa in Dal- unlive land, and on his head was the 

inali i. i had been wandering for weeks round cap with the red top which every 

among the warlike Serbs and Bosnians, Montenegrin seems to feel it his sacred 

along the noble rivers whicli divide Aus- duly to wear. But 1 looked in vain for 

tii i from Turkey in Europe, and had any symptoms of ferocity or of military 

seen many line specimens of the Slavic fervor in this innocent child's face, over 

lace, but whenever I had ventured i<> which the soft Adriatic breezes played 

praise the manly qualities which 1 had almost caressingly. Was this, then, a 

so often observed,] was alwaysansivered, representative of the dreaded mountai 

" You have not seen the Montenegrins." eers whom the Turks feared as they 

It was line, and I was constrained to fear to lose Paradise; of the people who 

silence. Yet it did not seem to me that esteem most him who has beheaded 

there could be, even in the redoubtable the greatest number of enemies in battle : 

Montenegro, the •■ Black Mountain " of of the little band who fought the French 

which such wondrous stories were told, so fiercely at the beginning of this cen- 

nien superior in strength of body, in tun', and whose descendants have so 

symmetry and suppleness of limb, in often since made the Mussulmans lower 

heroism and patriotism combined with their standards on the plains of Grahovor 

stern ferocity and sterling honesty of Was this the type for which 1 had been 

purpose, to my good friends of Servia prepared by so many thrilling anecdotes 

and Bosnia. [ looked forward, however, of heroic actions among the crags and 

to a great surprise some day, and had along the edges of the precipices in the 

awaited the appearance of the first Mon- Tsernagora? I was about to turn away, 

tenegrin type with impatient curiosity. incredulously smiling, when the hoy, as 

When 1 saw this type I was for a if he were conscious of having been 

moment grievouslv disappointed. Just keenly observed, turned toward us hall 

as the ruined walls of Diocletian's palace defiantly, and then for the first time 

were fading in the horizon, ami our I noticed that the girdle which he wore 

little steamer was running well out to about his waist was literally crammed 

sea. my attention was called by a fellow- with weapons. An enormous yataghan, 

passenger to a bo^ of fourteen or fifteen whose lull was incrusted with silver, and 

who stood among the peasants and which seemed too large for the boy to 

soldiers on the lower deck. The boy was swing unless he use.! both hands, was 

dressed in a white tunic ami gray How- the prominent object in this perambu- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



G89 



lating arsenal. Grouped around it were 
two huge, ungainly pistols, each nearly 
as long as the yataghan, a dagger con- 
cealed in a sheath curiously inlaid with 
silver, and a knife such as every Dal- 
matian and Montenegrin invariably 
carries, finding it equally convenient to 
thrust into his enemy's heart or to cut 
the pieces of roasted kid which he eats 
for his supper. 

As the boy turned he instinctively 
placed one hand upon the hilt of his 
yataghan. The gesture had nothing of 
menace in it, but it was a fitting revela- 
tion of the national characteristic. Alert, 
vigorous, shapely, keen, the young 
mountaineer's altitude at last excited 
my admiration, and I finally accepted 
him as the type of his race, expect- 
ing nevertheless soon to encounter speci- 
mens more in accordance with my earliest 
ideal. 

During the two days' voyage which 
followed my companion entered into the 
good graces of the young Montenegrin, 
and found that this sublime boy was 
already a noted warrior ; that he had 
left his native peaks and rocks because 
he wished to aid the Christians in Bosnia 
against the Turks, and, having fought 
well there, had been sent on a mission to 
Trieste, whence he was then returning. 
What was his mission? Ah, that was :i 
secret! He shook his head and looked 
fierce when some one suggested that he 
had been sent to buy arms for the Iler- 
zegovinan insurgents. Once he smiled 
scornfully, and then he said in a quick, 
tierce tone, "When we want arms we 
take them from the Turks." History 
certainly confirms this assertion. In 
1858, during some of the many disputes 
between Turkey and Montenegro, the 
Montenegrins fell upon an invading 
army vastly superior in numbers to their 
own and disarmed it. A few weeks later 



an Austrian officer who had visited the 
Black Mountain announced that he had 
seen two thousand two hundred and 
thirty-seven skeletons of Turkish soldiers 
on the field where this "disarmament" 
occurred. 

He who wanders among the rocks of 
Montenegro readily understands the char- 
acter of the people. The little prin- 




MONTENEGRINS ON THE WATCH. 

cipality has without doubt a more re- 
markable situation than any other country 
in the world. Travellers who have looked 
down upon it from the summit of Mt. 
Lovchen, its dominating peak, say that 
it resembles an immense petrified sea. 
As far as the eye can reach in any direc- 
tion nothing is to be seen but vast stony 
waves and wrinkles in the black surface 
of the rocks, — waves and wrinkles 
which, if one were close to them, would 
prove gigantic precipices, yawning 
chasms, valleys deep and sheltered, in 
which a few hardy Montenegrin women 
watch the goats and sheep cropping the 



690 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



short grasses among the stones. In this 
delicious southern climate the cloudless 
blue sky in summer arches tenderly 
above these frowning and terrible rocks, 
these colossal walls, and one is led to 
wonder why, instead of this oppressive 
and appalling desolation, he does not 
see hundreds of rich vineyards with 
their purpling fruits gleaming in the sun, 
or groves of olives, or lawns watered by 
picturesque rivers, rushing seaward past 
flower-strewn hanks, lint the Montene- 
grin never asks himself these questions. 
Born among the rocks, lie loves them, 
and would on no conditions exchange 
them for the pleasures of fertile valleys 
or fruitful hill-sides. He loves to cele- 
brate in his songs, the charms of the 
paths along the dizzy eminences where 
he only can tread freely ; lie compares 
himself to the falcon ; he is in his glory 
when his province is invaded, and he is 
at liberty to fight from rock to rock, to 
lie in wait for hours behind piles of 
stones, to leap exultant into the very 
midst of his foes, brandishing his sword, 
and shouting " Glory to the people ! " 

The frontiers of Montenegro have 
always been uncertain. For several 
centuries the territory has varied in ex- 
tent according to its fortunes in war. 
Never for a moment owning the domina- 
tion of the Turks, its people have been 
constantly embroiled with them, and 
have kept such frontiers as they chose 
to establish as long as they could by 
force of arms. From time to time the 
Turks have succeeded in forcing their 
way in ; then the Montenegrins have 
risen and reasserted their rights by 
driving out the enemy, and by cutting 
off the heads of all Turks left on the 
battle-field. The Montenegrin was and 
is cradled to the sound of songs which 
tell him to hate the Turk and to kill him 
whenever and wherever he may meet 



him. The struggle, the hatred, was 
never greater than now, nor was Monte- 
negro ever bolder, fur behind her stands 
a power whose prudence in aiding her 
against the Turk is only exceeded by its. 
firmness and the immensity of its re- 
sources, — a power that is feared in 
Turkey, formidable and determined in 
Russia. 

Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montene- 
gro all formed a part of the ancient 
country of the Dalmatians, which was 
united to the Roman empire under Tibe- 
rius. These various territories were 
settled, toward the middle of the seventh 
century, by the Slavic tribes which 
came from beyond the Carpathian moun- 
tains. Had these tribes been united 
permanently, they would to-day have 
formed one of the most powerful nations 
in Europe, lint up to the date of the 
Ottoman conquest they were generally 
separate and distinct. Bosnia was ruled 
by kings, Herzegovina by dukes, and 
Montenegro by vladikas, or prince- 
bishops. The people of each province 
did deeds of valor, but all save Monte- 
negro succumbed before the fury of the 
Ottoman sword. The mountaineers have 
for four hundred and fifty years kept the 
Turk at bay, although he has succeeded 
in maintaining a foothold in every one 
of their kindred provinces except Dal- 
matia, which is protected by the Austrian 
Hag. 

Montenegro is bounded on the north 
and north-west by Herzegovina, on the 
north-east anil east by Bosnia, and on 
thr j south-east anil east by Albania. 
and on the south-west by Dalmatia. In 
form its boundaries are not unlike a 
rudely shaped star. It had no outlet 
upon the Adriatic sea until after the 
Russo-Turkish war, since the Austrians 
held the port of Cattaro, one of the 
loveliest spots in Southern Europe, 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



(Sill 



which would have been the most practi- 
cable port for the Montenegrins ; and 
Dnlcigno, the next best, was in the pos- 
session of Turkey. The latter town, with 
its surrounding district, was surrendered 
to Montenegro under pressure of the 
great powers, in 1880. The principal 
route to its capital among the rocks and 
crags, and arrived at only by the paths 
through seemingly inaccessible moun- 
tains, leads from Cattaro, which the 
traveller may read) by steamer from 
Trieste in a little more than four days. 
One's first impression on gazing at the 
nicks around Cattaro is that he is dream- 
ing. Everything seems fantastic, un- 
real, stagey ; one is reminded of a fairy 
scene in a spectacle at a theatre. The 
Dalmatian coast, witii its vast crags 
towering skyward, touched here and there 
with white, which contrasts admirably 
with their arid, reddish garb of stone. 
does not prepare one for the wonders 
into whose presence he is ushered at the 
" Bocca di Cattaro." 

The name Montenegro, according to 
that amiable patrician of Cattaro, Mari- 
ano Bolizza, who explored the country at 
the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
and made a report upon it to the Vene- 
tian republic, was given to this section 
by the Turks, because its gloomy re- 
cesses were associated in their minds 
witli so many attacks from enemies 
whom they could never see or seize. 
Whoever gave the land the name, its 
appropriateness cannot be questioned. 
When the traveller crosses the lake of 
Scutari, in Albania, and sees before him 
an impenetrable amphitheatre of moun- 
tains clad in most sombre colors, (if 
rocky surfaces filled with an infinite 
number of recesses where the shadows 
gather, and of uplands covered in sum- 
mer with thick but dark foliage, and in 
wiuter with nothing save the blackened 



skeletons of boughs, he will strive in 
vain to discover a better appellation I'm 
such a panorama than Montenegro. 

The population of this little princi- 
pality is barely one hundred and ninety 
thousand ; and fully one-third of the men 
are nearly always absent from home, 
engaged in warlike expeditions. The 
Montenegrins welcomed the Ilcrzego- 
vinan insurrection with joy, because it 
gave them a new chance to fight and to 
kill Turks. They could hardly persuade 
themselves to obey the injunction which 
their prince was compelled to serve 
upon them, not to aid the insurrection 
by organized action in large bodies. 
They vanished across the frontier two by 
two. and found their way into the various 
head-quarters of the insurgent chiefs, 
where they were received as men who 
would never yield to the Turk nor listen 
to his promises. So inflamed with rage 
against the Moslems are the Montene- 
grins (if late years that they cannot even 
hear the latter mentioned without grasp- 
ing their weapons convulsively. At the 
battle near Utowo, in the autumn of 
1875 these fiery mountaineers broke 
ranks and rushed with drawn knives 
upon the battalions of Turks. Nothing 
could withstand them, and the Turks, 
throwing away their guns, lied as if the 
foul Bend were after them. 

The country is divided into provinces, 
or natrie, as they are culled, four be- 
longing to Montenegro proper, and four 
to the lierda, the name given to the moun- 
tainous district in the interior. Each 
of these provinces is subdivided into 
plemena, which correspond to the can- 
tons of Switzerland, and the plemena 
are divided into villages. Every prov- 
ince has a distinctly marked type of 
inhabitant; people who live but a few 
miles apart are radically dissimilar in 
temperament, in stature, and in methods 



692 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of thought ; and this is the most curious 
of the many peculiarities of Montenegro. 
The finest type of the mountaineer and 
warrior is the man six feet tall, with 
grave, thoughtful face, which contrasts 
singularly with his quick, nervous gait, 
He generally has high cheek-bones, like 
an Indian ; his eye is black and pierc- 
ing ; his lips are shaded by a square 
black mustache ; there is a slight stoop 
in his shoulders, accounted for by the 
fact that he is constantly bending for- 
ward as lie ascends difficult heights; 
his feet are huge, flat, and ungraceful, 
made for the solid business of gripping 
the rocks and clinging to them. The 
Montenegrin of every type is by no 
means devoid of tact; he is artful in 
deception when dealing with an enemy ; 
fond of ambush and stratagem; cruel, 
sanguinary, and unappeasable in re- 
venge; enthusiastic in his friendships; 
not given to sudden anger, but slow to 
repent of wrath, even though he may be 
in the wrong. lie is probabh the most 
agile human being on the soil of 
Europe. He can go anywhere that the 
chamois can. The goats sometimes 
hesitate to follow their Montenegrin 
shepherds when there is a dangerous 
pass to be crossed. Every inhabitant 
of the principality, man, woman, or 
child, possesses the most extraordinary 
power of enduring hunger and thirst. 
The men will march for days among the 
rocks, eating nothing hut coarse bread 
made from hitter routs, and now and 
then descending into the valleys to taste 
the brackish water in the pools. He 
wdio cannot, endure tremendous fatigue 
is looked upon as worthless in Montene- 
gro; the women frown upon him, and 
his fellow-men abhor him. During the 
last century the warriors now and then 
degenerated into banditti, and some- 
times made tierce raids along the fron- 



tiers; hut, this practice was so sternly 
rebuked in 179C by one of their rulers 
that it has now quite fallen into decay. 
The Turks are molested by their warlike 
neighbors only on occasions when some 
new broil between the two nationalities 
has occurred. There is a deep religious 
feeling among all classes ; even the 
rudest warrior, when he arrives on the 
hills from which he can look down to 
the monastery at Tsettinj6, will doff his 
cap and with bared head will murmur 
a prayer. In the insurgent camp in 
Herzegovina I frequently saw Monte- 
grins who were known to he extremely 
cruel in battle entering a wayside cot- 
tage with the peaceful salutation of 
" God be with you !" or with the words, 
"By my God, by thy God!" The 
effusive Slavic manners prevail among 
these rough men. They kiss when they 
meet, and part; they hold each other 
clasped in last embrace for a. moment, 
then they separate gravely and deco- 
rously. The strange]- among them is 
treated with the same cordiality, unless 
he manifest, a disposition to resent it. 

The Montenegrins have frequently 
been accused of slavery to superstition ; 
but this is a slander. There are some 
few remnants of superstitious practices 
among them, but these are fast, fading 
out. They are far too healthy and vig- 
orous beings to become the prey of any 
absurdities. Their hearing is wonder- 
fully line ; their sight is so acute that, one 
fancies them boasting when they tell him 
how far they can see. Their accuracy 
of aim is remarkable. During the insur- 
rection of 1869 the 1 Austrian soldiers 
attempted to coerce some of the moun- 
taineers near Cattaro into obedience to 
the conscription laws. The riflemen of the 
insurgents shot, into the loop-holes of a 
fortress which they were besieging, anil 
did it with such precision that no Aus- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



693 



trian soldier could maintain his position 
near the embrasures. The Montengrin 
rarely misses his aim, and when he does 
he considers it a personal dishonor, which 
can only be wiped out by some glorious 
deed. 

The popes or priests of the ( ! reek 
Church, to which the Montenegrins ad- 
here, arc fully as warlike, as their pa- 
rishioners. Half a dozen of them are 
prominent among the leaders in the Her- 
zegovinan insurrection. They rejoice 
in the deeds which one would imagine 
their religion would compel (hem to re- 
prove. At night they gather around 
them the young and old men. and with 
musical voices, although to a monotonous 
chant, they recite the valorous deeds of 
their ancestors, and do not forget those 
which they have done themselves. They 
love to point to the trophies which they 
have taken from the dead bodies of their 
enemies, and to recount the slaughter 
necessary to secure them. At Tsettinjc 
there is a priest who was a brave guerilla 
chieftain in one of the recent wars. 
Many a Turk has he sent to the other 
world ; and he is very proud of it. On 
the breast of his robe are sewn a dozen 
decorations which he has received for 
deeds of valor. Nothing is more com- 
mon than to see a child of twelve or 
thirteen who has already been in a 
dozen battles, and who bears as many 
scars on his body. 

The formation of a regular military 
system in .Montenegro has been of great 
service in preventing many jealousies 
and avoiding numerous bloody feuds. 
There are at present two strong divisions 
of ten thousand men, each under the 
command of the prince, and armed with 
excellent modern weapons. In this val- 
iant little body there is a chance for pro- 
motion, and the genius and skill which 
have hitherto been wasted in desultory 



warfare arc concentrated. The army 
has a general-in-ehief, known as the voi- 
voda, and other voivodas hold ranks cor- 
responding to those of division and briga- 
dier generals. The Montenegrin woman 
is iii many respects an object of pity to 
the travellers who pass through the 
strange little principality; but there is no 
woman in the country who would not be 
grievously offended at any show of sym- 
pathy. To work incessantly and to suf- 
fer is the destiny of tin' women of this 
race. They are not even welcomed info 
the world : a Montenegrin father, when 
asked by his neighbor what the sex of 
his new-born child is, answers, "God 
pardon me! it is a girl;" sometimes he 
says, " It is a serpent, *' which is a poeti- 
cal manner of expressing his regret at, 
the birth of a daughter. The girl grows 
up neglected, and often cursed ; she 
carries fagots of wood on her head, in 
order that she may earn a few coins with 
which to buy arms for her brothers. 
She has no youth; at twenty-live she 
seems already old. She is married 
young, and bears and cares for her chil- 
dren while supporting labor in the fields 
which would be hard even for strong 
men. She trembles before her father, 
her brother, her husband ; she only 
awakens to freedom and independence of 
action when excited by the noise of the 
combat, to which she frequently follows 
the warriors. She luges them on, and 
loads their guns, and dresses their 
wounds. The Montenegrin woman is 
rarely beautiful of feature, and the coarse 
work which she performs soon ruins her 
form. Her virtue is beyond reproach ; 
intrigues are unknown in Montenegro, 
and gallantry would find a sharp reproof 
at the point of a yataghan. The women 
wander unattended wherever I hey please 
throughout the country ; for while a 
Montenegrin warrior would never think 



694 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

of relieving a woman from the heavy courngc and his prowess in front of the 

burden of fagots or provisions which she enemy. 

may l>e fainting under, and while he may, This overworked and much-abused 
perhaps, rail at her for her weakness, he creature lias one gracious accomplish- 
would not by word or deed oiler her rnent: the Montenegrin woman is ex- 
file slightest, insult. The woman i ; ccedingly expert in embroideries, and 
almost servile with regard to her bus- they are a prominent feature of the 
baud ; if she sees him eomiiig along the national costume. The women work at 
road, she turns off , or passes him rapidly, them when they are walking along the 
that he may not be compelled to recog- roads bearing upon their heads burdens 
nizc her. Should the warrior be seen which seem heavy enough to crush a 
wasting his time in loitering by his wife's pack-horse. 

side, he would be subjected to reproach White is the national color, and the 
from the elders in the village. A few very height of Montenegrin elegance is 
years since one could not have found a white tunic embroidered with gold. A 
in the whole of Montenegro one woman garment of this kind sometimes costs 
knowing how to read or write ; latterly more than 8300. The ordinary costume 
some tew schools, to which women have of the warrior consists of a tunic de- 
access, have been established. seending to the knee and confined at the 
The duties of hospitality all fall upon waist by a girdle ; a huge waistcoat, the 
the woman. It is she who unlaces the top of which shows above the loose 

1 ts of the stranger when he arrives, tunic, and is generally embroidered in 

and who washes his feet, who serves at gold or studded with precious stones; 
the table, and holds the flaming pine- and trousers of the Turkish pattern, 
knot by which the others sec to eat. made of blue cloth, and knotted below 
The husband does not even notice his the knees by garters, 
wife, unless it be to request some menial The, prince and one or two other high 
service of her. dignitaries wear a cloak of red cloth, 
It is a wonder Montenegrin babies very rich and graceful, over all the other 
ever live through the severe course of garments. Every warrior wears a small 
swaddling which they undergo from their girdle, called the kulcm, which is made 
earliest day until they are weaned. They of leather or red morocco, and is divided 
arc strapped to boards and slung oyer into compartments intended for pistols, 
the backs of their mothers, and thus, daggers, and yataghan. Every boy 
winter and summer, they make long wears one from earliest childhood, but 
journeys in the mountains and among until he can be trusted with a pistol is 
the rocks. allowed to carry only such innocent play- 
When the husband falls ill it is not the things as a dagger and small sword. 
wife who cares for him, but his parents. The strouka is a garment common too 
Etiquette demands that- the wife should both sexes. It, is a broad and long 
appear indifferent to his condition, and woollen scarf with tassellcd ends, some- 
should attend to her duties in house and what, resembling the blanket worn in 
field as if he were in no danger. But Southern Spain, and is woven by the old 
when he dies she is expected to burst, women who can no longer bring wood 
into loud lamentations, and in all the from the mountains. This blanket is the 
country round sing the praises of his Montenegrin's only protection from wind 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



(W5 



or rain or biting cold ; and a local prov- 
erb says, "Rain or shine, take your 
strouka with yon: yon can sleep under 
it or on it." The opanJci, or hide slip- 
per, which the mountaineers, men and 
women, wear, is clumsy in shape, but 
wonderfully convenient for rock-climb- 
ing. The Austrian soldiers in the moun- 
tains near Cattaro endeavored to adopt 
the opanMs for chasing insurgents, but 
they discovered that it requires long- 
practice to learn how to walk in them. 
They are tied on with a multitude of 
strings, and it is a work of art to learn 
how to slip them off speedily. 

The costume of the women is not un- 
graceful. The chief article is the faint, 
a long basque without sleeves, which 
descends to the knee. If the family be 
rich, this gown is sometimes embroid- 
ered with costly stuffs. Hut, whether 
a woman be rich or poor, she usually 
wears an apron made of silk or of some 
glistening material, and an ample girdle 
surmounted with sin object very much 
like an enormous door-plate. Into this 
girdle she thrusts all her sewing mate- 
rials, her dagger, her jewels, and such 
of her broideries as she does not wish 
for the moment to display. Until the 
day of their marriage the women wear 
round caps exactly like those worn by 
the men. From that moment they always 
appear in public wearing the marama, a 
v;ist kerchief of silk or wool, which 
completely conceals their hair and falls 
down to the waist, covering the shoul- 
ders and giving the wearer the look of 
a nun. 

The kapa, which the male Montene- 
grin wears as his head covering, has its 
legend, poetic and sanguinary. The 
warrior says that the red ground of the 
cap signifies the lake of blood into which 
the country has been plunged ever since 
the great and disastrous battle of Kos- 



bovo ; that the black border denotes the 
veil of mourning extended over the 
whole section ; that the golden disk 
shown emerging from this funereal crape, 
and surrounded with an aureole, is the 
Montenegrin sun rising on a bloody 
horizon, but rising to warm into new 
life with its generous rays a regenerate 
and liberated race. No warrior of t ho 
" Black Mountain" country would wear 
any other head covering than this faipa 
for any consideration whatever. 

In the old days the Montenegrin vla- 
dikas, or prince-bishops, had entire pos- 
session of the civil, military, and re- 
ligious power of the country, and the 
populations, bound to them by mysteri- 
ous reverence, were passionately devoted 
to their service. Peter II. was the last 
of the vladikas. lie died in 1851, after 
a singularly brilliant and satisfactory 
career, during which he did much to 
soften the manners of his people. In 
his early youth he had been a shepherd, 
but he was subsequently educated in 
Russia. Some years before his death 
lie showed rare poetical taste, and on 
the different occasions when lie visited 
European capitals he was recognized as 
a man of marked talent in literature. 
Dying, he designated his nephew I)a- 
nilo to succeed him. When Danilo came 
to the throne he announced his inten- 
tion of relinquishing the old theocratic 
power with which his family had been 
invested for a century and a half, and 
that he would content himself with reign- 
ing as civil and military chief of the 
country. The senate ratified this deter- 
mination, the Russian Government lent 
its powerful support to the new pro- 
gramme, and Montenegro became an 
absolute monarchy under the hereditary 
government of a prince. Danilo's as- 
sassination at Cattaro, in August of 1 800, 
by a returned exile, brought to the throne 



69G EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

the present prince, Nicholas I., a man showed great skill in managing his res- 

of rare talents, fine sympathies, and < - tive people and in responding smoothly 

sideralile tact in politics. All who have to the irritating demands of the Turkish 

seen this prince in his simple palace envoys, wl nlv sought an excuse for 

among the rocks at Tsettinjd unite in invading his territory. The forts which 

according him generous praise. In the Turkey is allowed to maintain on the 

troublous moments of the autumn of Montenegrin holder are a perpetual 

1878, when imprudent action on the part menace to the independence of the little 

of Montenegro might have precipitated principality, and are the cause of dozens 

all Europe in war, Prince Nicholas of skirmishes yearly. 



EUROPE IN ST OHM AND CALM. 



697 



CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE. 



Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. 



-The Outpost of Russia. — The Montenegrin Capital. — Battle with the 
Turks. — Legends of Tsernagora. 



PRINCE Nicholas has evidently a 
higher opinion of women than 
most of his countrymen have, for when 
he visited Russia, in 1869, he left the 
regency in the hands of Milena Niko- 
lawa, his wife, a lady of much beauty 
and raia character. The visit of the 
prince to St. Petersburg was not without 
political significance. From that time 
may lie said to date the public ac- 
knowledgment of (he species of pro- 
tectorate which Russia has established 
over Montenegro. Russia has made of 
this little star-shaped province hevavant- 
poste in the East. It was even said 
jestingly in Austria that Mr. Alexan- 
dre Yonine, the Russian consul at Ra- 
gnsa, the chief Dalmatian town near the 
"Black Mountain," was the real prince 
of Montenegro, because through him it 
was believed that the Russian government 
directed the policy which, with the aid of 
Montenegro and Montenegrin enthusi- 
asm, it hopes to carry out. By sup- 
porting Prince Nicholas in his mountain 
home in his battles against the Turks, 
and by aiding Prince Milan in Servia to 
continue rebellious. Russia was steadily 
preparing the downfall of the Turkish 
power in Europe and the reuniting of 
all the long-separated branches of the 
Serbo-Slavic family. 

The prince voluntarily abdicated many 
of his rights as absolute monarch in 
1868, and the Montenegrin senate now 
has very large powers. But the prince 
is still all powerful in matters of foreigu 



policy, and the people are quite content 
that in those his will should be the law. 
The route from Cattaro to Tsettinje 
runs through one of the prettiest valleys 
in Montenegro, — a valley which gives 
its name to the reigning dynasty, — 
the Niegroch. But after the charms of 
Cattaro even the Niegroch seems savage 
and forbidding. Cattaro has grand old 
villas with red roofs, terraces loaded 
with luxuriant blossoms, eminences 
crowned with poplars and acacias. 
Out of the labyrinth of crooked but, 
cleanly streets peer little gardens whose 
rows of shrubs and (lowering plants are 
fantastically trimmed. Over dingy and 
massive balconies huge ancient vines 
wind and turn in loving and clinging 
profusion and confusion. At each step 
one comes upon half-ruined memorials 
of Byzantine architecture; a sculptured 
balustrade is seen through a grove of 
orange trees; among the citrons one 
can dimly discern capitals of mouldering 
pillars, porticoes, artistic bits of iron 
and steel decoration fastened upon the 
fronts of mansions, all the chaste and 
elegant remnants of a vanished past. 
Here one looks shuddcringly for the shades 
of the Saracens who held the old town in 
(he ninth century, long after the Romans 

— who esteemed it one of their best ports 
when they held Dalmatia in their grip 

— had been forgotten. Many masters 
have held Cattaro since then ; the Vene- 
tians left their mark upon it ; the kings 
of Bosnia thought it one of their best 



G93 



EUROm IN STORM AND CALM. 



strongholds; then tlio Venetians took it 
again, and kept it for nearly four hun- 
dred years, making it one of the centres 
nf tlii- arts, the learning, and the mili- 
tary genius of the period. From IT'.iT 
until 1808 Cattaro was successively 
Austrian, French, Russian, French 
again, and, finally, in 1814, came once 
mure under Austrian domination. The 
population of the surrounding district 
has never liked the Austrians, and rarely 
misses an occasion to testify its repug- 
nance. The commerce of the town is 
with the Montenegrins, and so are the 
sympathies of its merchants. It is a 
brave little fortress-ridden community, 
which the rocks seem determined to 
push oil' into the sea, but which main- 
tains its hold, and serenely survives 
earthquakes, revolutions, and changes 
of government. Were it not for the 
few stiff and awkward soldiers whom 
one sees strutting about the entry of the 
port one could with difficulty persuade 
himself that Cattaro is an Austrian 
town, for the Montenegrin men and 
women are everywhere to be seen in the 
narrow streets. Every mountaineer, as 
he arrives at the dividing line between 
the city and the country, is compelled to 
deposit his arms with a frontier guard, 
when he is going into Austria. This he 
considers a great indignity, and it is the 
source of frequent recriminations, and 
sometimes of bloody quarrels. In the 
market, on the outskirts of the town, the 
hardy Montenegrin is allowed to bear 
his weapons about with him. 

The traveller leaves the stony hemi- 
cycle of the port, the charms of Cattaro, 
and enters upon a zigzag route dug in 
the side of the locks when he departs 
for Tsettinje. The prudent wanderer 
will start before dawn ; for as soon as 
the sun develops its fervor the ascent is 
almost perilous. On the arid surface 



the heat beats down with terrific effect. 
There is no comfort in the gleam of (ho 
distant blue sea. Above, the crags 
tower, pitiless and gigantic. The path 
or staircase winds round and round, 
never continuing more than a, few yards 
in a straight line. The very monotony of 
those abrupt turns becomes inexpres- 
sibly wearisome. Sure-footed mules, 
driven by women or children, and loaded 
with wool, with fish, or with grain, often 
blockade the way, and the traveller is 
sometimes at his wits' end to contrive 
an escape from some abyss into which 
the crowding caravans seem about to 
urge him. If one escapes without seri- 
ous adventure in his journey up this 
tortuous path, he finds himself presently 
entering upon a wider but still more 
rocky route, and at last reaches the 
valley of Niegroch, in a little nook of 
which Prince Nicholas was born, and 
where, in a quaint villa, erected some 
years since, the royal family passes 
some portion of every summer. 

'I'he journey from Cattaro to Tsettinjd 
occupies live hours of active climbing ; 
and if the .Montenegrin guide is in a 
communicative mood, and persists in 
telling you. in his poetical and rich 
Serbo-Slavie language, the legend of 
every stone which lies by the way, a 
whole day may be readily consumed. 
Tsettinje is a little village composed of 
two streets among the rocks. There 
an' sixty or seventy small white cot- 
tages, tin' interiors of which are by no 
means so invitingly clean as one could 
desire. One or two of the residences 
perhaps merit the name of mansions; 
these served in past days as the habita- 
tions cf princes. The hall occupied by 
the present Montenegrin senate, the 
government printing office, the arsenal, 
the treasury, and the '-archives" is 
small, and quite devoid of any architect- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



<>99 



ural pretensions. Once upon a time it 
was the royal palace ; and because a 
billiard table was brought to it on the 
backs of men from Cattaro, the people 
of the neighborhood to this day call it 
Bigliardo. The "palace" at present 
occupied by Prince Nicholas is a very 
plain, one-story edifice. It once pos- 
sessed a roof covered with lead, but 
there came a time when bullets were 
much needed, and the lead was wrenched 
off and used to kill Turks with. This 
w;is but one of many free-will offerings 
from the prince to his people for the 
common safety. Under a great tree in 
the centre of the village the warriors 
meet when rumors of battle are in the 
air. They sit in a semi-circle, smoke 
much, talk little, decide quickly, and 
then go forth to slaughter. If they 
need any inspiration they have only to 
turn their gaze in the direction of the 
" Turks' Tower," a small, round edifice 
on a high rock which overlooks the 
town. On this tower it has been from 
time immemorial the custom to nail the 
heads of decapitated enemies. The 
prince who preceded Nicholas sup- 
pressed this public barbarism; but 
neither he nor his successor will ever 
succeed in preventing the Montenegrin 
who has slain a Turk in battle from 
cutting off his head. Unimpeachable 
witnesses assert that fifty-five Turkish 
heads were brought away from the tight 
at Utowo ; and Peko the Terrible, who 
was one. of the most active of the 
Montenegrin agents in the Ilerzegovinan 
insurrection, himself told me that the 
practice of dissecting an enemy still pre- 
vails among his people. 

The venerable monastery of Tset- 
tinj<j is the only picturesque building in 
the whole neighborhood. It was erected 
at the close of the fifteenth century by 
one of the vladikas, near the site of a 



cloister which had been founded in 1484, 
but had been much injured in serving 
alternately as a fortress against the 
Turks and a plaything for violent earth- 
quakes. The monastery of to-day serves 
as a home of the vladika and the archi- 
mandrite, the chief of the orthodox reli- 
gion professed according to the Greek 
rite throughout Montenegro, and also as 
a prison for women who need correction. 
Prince Nicholas now and then gives a 
banquet to his warriors in his modest 
palace, and the spectacle on such occa- 
sions is unique in the extreme. From 
all points in the little principality come 
tall, gaunt men, clad in their gala cos- 
tumes, and wearing cuirasses of silver 
or steel. Gathered round the banquet 
table, they are decorous and diffident, 
saying but little until the prince leads 
them on to tell of their exploits. Late 
at night, after the princely festivities are 
over, the warriors gather in a circle 
around a little fire in a cottage, and 
sing songs filled with memories of com- 
bat. 

The prince is cool, hardy, and resolute 
in the midst of danger. He narrowly 
escaped assassination at the hands of 
a Turk some years ago, but he wanders 
about the country unprotected whenever 
he pleases, with no fear of a second 
attempt. His conduct during the disas- 
trous day when Omar Pacha in 1802 suc- 
ceeded in gaining a temporary victory 
over the Montenegrins was in the high- 
est degree manly and wise. His father, 
Mirko, who was a terrible scourge to the 
Turks, and who was aiding in the com- 
plete military development of the princi- 
pality, was ordered by a treaty signed 
at Scutari between Omar Pacha and the 
Montenegrins, at the conclusion of the 
campaign of 18G2, to be expelled from 
the country. But although the Turks 
were in a condition to force a treaty upon 



700 



EUROI'K IN STORM AND CALM. 



the Montenegrins, they could not sum- 
mon force enougb to make them accept 
its odious conditions, and Mirko the 
Valiant remained among his native 
mountains. Prince Nicholas rises often 
at dawn, ami wanders, attended by a 
small suite, through the streets of Tset- 
tinje, hearing 1 1 it- complaints of the poor 
and the oppressed and the reports of 
his warriors. He enters the senate 

house and listens to the noisy discus- 
sions of the sixteen conscript fathers, — 
discussions always accompanied by the 
clang of anus. Each senator has his 
heavy weapons laid upon the desk before 
him, but keeps his pistols and daggers 
in his girdle. Each one smokes a long 
pipe furiously dining the session, and 
when speaking emphasizes his many 
gestures with it. The prince sometimes 
makes an address there, and is not sur- 
prised now and then to find himself flatly 
contradicted. He visits the prisons, the 
courts, often acts as counsel for a crim- 
inal who has no defender, gives advice 
to the ignorant, and even settles family 
disputes. If he gets hungry while prom- 
enading, he has only to return to the 
senate house, where the fathers daily 
roast a sheep whole, and partake of thc- 
smoking flesh while slill continuing U> 
discuss affairs of stale. 

In winter the snows rest heavily upon 
the huge crags, and in the deep) valleys 
the flocks sometimes suffer for food. 
But the snows do not hinder the moun- 
taineers from making long journeys in 
pursuit of game or the Turkish soldier; 
indeed, the women are often alone the 
whole winter-time. When the husbands 
depart they do not tell their wives where 
they are going, and no Montenegrin 
woman would be brave enough to ask 
her lord and master any indiscreet ques- 
tions. 

Rieka is a pretty little town, about 



three hours' march from Tsettinje, not 
far from the Albanian frontier of Mon- 
tenegro. Near it is a manufactory of 
arms, recently established by the govern- 
ment. Tin- com cut at Rieka was once 
very famous ; in the sixteenth century 
the vladikas, who were driven out of 
other fortress-convents by the Turks, 
took refuge there, and made it one of 
the centres of the Slavic learning of 
the time. Rieka has nothing to recom- 
mend it to attention nowadays save an 
occasional fair, to which the warriors 
and maidens come to buy the Albanian 
jewelry and Turkish pistols and yata- 
ghans. 

The monastery of Ostrog is one of the 
curiosities of Montenegro, and is an 
edilice never mentioned in the Black 
Mountain without reverence. High up 
among the rocks stand two plain stone 
structures, which form a specie-, of double 
monastery. In one of them the valiant 
father of the present prince successfully 
held at bay a. small Turkish army with 
fourteen men in 1n.">7. The convent is a 
place of pilgrimage for all the orthodox 
populations of Montenegro, Bosnia, Al- 
bania, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia ; and 
the peasants sometimes endure incredi- 
ble hardships in braving the storms 
in those terrible mountain ways that 
they may say their prayers at the doors 
of Ostrog. All the rocks round about 
are memorials of bloody battles between 
Turks and Christians. Ostrog is the 
seat of one of the excellent schools 
which the Montenegrin government, with 
the aid of Russia and Servia, founded 
several years ago. In the savage solitude 
.•:' Ostrog lives the venerable Ljubitch, 
the archimandrite, who teaches theology, 
grammar, history, and science to the 
pupils sent him, and waits patiently for 
them to manifest their "vocation.'' Some 
of them don the priestly gown, but none 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



701 



ever put aside the weapons which 
they have worn from earliest child- 
hood. Climbing to the summit of Mt. 
Lovehen, near Tsettinje, where the 
tomb of Peter II., the distinguished 
vladika, stands out, a landmark seen 
from miles around*, against the clear blue 
of the sky, and looking down over the 
rugged, rocky country stretching away 
to the sea, the traveller reflects with 
astonishment upon the energy and will 
which have built up a state, and pro- 
tected it for more than four centuries 
against a formidable enemy in such sur- 
roundings. Montenegro yearly becomes 
more and more important to the Euro- 
pean family ; her population, despite the 



ravages of war, constantly increases, 
and her political importance is to-day of 
a very high rank, since a declaration of 
Prince Nicholas in the stony streets of 
Tsettinje' may cause the downfall of half- 
a-dozen thrones. It is probable that the 
little country will be permitted to keep 
her autonomy inviolate, whatever ma)* 
be the other results of the coming events 
in which her warriors will take a promi- 
nent part. She is universally respected 
because of her own strength and inde- 
pendence, — doubly at this moment be- 
cause of the mysterious support which 
she receives from that Russia which has 
been her occasional ally since the days 
of Peter the Great. 



7U2 



EUROPE JN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER EIGHTY. 

Danubian Days. — Hungarians and Slavs. — A Turkish Fortress. —The Footprints of Trajan. — Orsova 
the Fair. — Gypsies. — Animals in the East. — Lower Hungary and its Peculiar Features.- 
Wayside Inns Along the Danube. — The Harvesters Coming Home at Eventide. — Gypsies at 
Drcnkova. — Through (be Iron Gates. 



ADA-KALE is a Turkish fortress 
which seems to spring directly 
from the bosom of the Danube, :it :i 
point where three curious and quarrel- 
some races come into contact, and where 
the Ottoman thought it necessary to 
have a foothold even in times of pro- 
found peace. To the traveller from 
Western Europe no spectacle on the way 
to Constantinople was so impressive, be- 
fore the war of 1877, as this ancient and 
picturesque fortification, suddenly af- 
fronting the vision with its odd walls, 
its minarets, its red-capped sentries, and 
the yellow sinister faces peering from 
balconies suspended above the current. 
It was the fust glimpse of tin' Orient 
which one obtained: it appropriately 
introduced one to a domain which is gov- 
erned by sword and gun; and it was a 
pretty spot of color in the midst of the 
severe and rather solemn scenery of the 
Danubian stream. Ada-Kale is to be 
razed to the water's edge, — s_> at least 
the treaty between Russia ami Turkey 
has ordained. — and the Servian moun- 
taineers will no longer see the crescent 
flag flying within rifle-shot of the crags 
from which, by their heroic devotion in 
unequal battle, they long ago banished 
it. 

The. Turks occupying this fortress 
during the recent war evidently relied 
upon fate lor their protection, for the 
walls of Ada-Kale are within a stone's 
throw of the Roumanian shore, and every 



Mussulman in the place could have been 
captured in twenty minutes. I passed 
by there one morning on the road from 
Orsova, on the frontier of Hungary, to 
Bucharest, and was somewhat amused to 
see an elderly Turk seated in a small 
boat near the Roumanian bank fishing. 
Behind him were two soldiers, who 
served as oarsmen, and rowed him gently 
from point to point when he gave the 
signal. Scarcely six hundred feet from 
him stood a Wallachian sentry, watch- 
ing his movements in lazy, indifferent 
fashion. And this was at the moment 
when tin' Turks were bombarding Kalafat 
in Roumania from Widdin on the Bulga- 
rian side of the Danube! Such a spec- 
tacle could be witnessed nowhere save 
in this land. " where it is always after- 
noon," where people at times seem to 
suspend respiration because they an' too 
idle to breathe, and where even a dog- 
will protest if you ask him to move 
quickly out of your path. The old Turk 
doubtless fished in silence and calm until 
the end of the war. for I never heard of 
the removal of either himself or his com- 
panions. 

The journeys by river and by rail from 
Lower Roumania to the romantic and 
broken country surrounding Orsova are 
extremely interesting. The Danube 
stretches of shimmering water among the 
reedy lowlands — where the only sign of 
life is a quaint craft painted in gaudy 
colors becalmed in some nook, or a 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



703 



guard-house built on piles driven into the 
mnd — are perhaps a trifle monotonous, 
but one has only to turn from them to 
the people who eorac on board the 
steamer to have a rich fund of enjoy- 
ment. Nowhere arc types so abundant 
and various as on the routes of travel 
between Bucharest and 
Rustchuk, or Pesth and 
Belgrade. Every com- 
plexion, an extraordinary 
piquancy and variety of 
costume, and a bewilder- 
ing array of languages 
and dialects are set before 
the careful observer. As 
for myself, I found a 
special enchantment in the 
scenery of the Danube, — 
in the lonely inlets, the 
wildernesses of young 
shoots in the marshes, the 
flights of aquatic birds as 
the sound of the steamer 
was heard, the long 
tongues of land on which 
the water-buffaloes lay 
huddled in stupid con- 
tent, the tiny hummocks, 
where villages of wattled 
hovels were assembled. 
The Bulgarian shore 
stands out in bold relief. 
Sistova, from the river, is 
positively beautiful, but 
the now historical 
Simnitza seems only a mud-flat. At 
night the boats touch upon the Rouma- 
nian side for fuel, — the Turks have- 
always been too lazy and vicious to de- 
velop the splendid mineral resources of 
Bulgaria, — and the stout peasants and 
their wives trundle thousands of barrows 
of coal along the swinging planks. Here 
is raw life, lusty, full of rude beauty, 
but utterly iucult. The men and women 



appear to be merely animals gifted with 
speech. The women wear almost no 
clothing; their matted hair drops about 
their shapely shoulders as they toil 
at their burden, singing meanwhile some 
merry chorus. Little tenderness is be- 
stowed on these creatures, and it vvas not 




THE RUSSIAN'S CROSSING 
THE DANUBE IN FRONT 
OK SISTOVA. 



without a slight twinge of 
the nerves that T saw the 
huge, burl}' master of the 
boat's crew now and then bestow a ring- 
ing slap with his open hand upon the 
neck or cheek of one of the poor women 
who stumbled with her load, or who 
halted for a moment to indulge in abuse 
of a comrade. As the boat moved away. 
these people, dancing about the heaps of 
coal in the torchlight, looked not unlike 
demons disporting in some gruesome 
nook of enchanted laud. When thev 



704 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



were gypsies they did not need the aid of 
the torches : they were sufficiently de- 
moniacal without artificial aid. 

Kalafat and Turnu-Severinu are small 
towns which would never have hern 
much heard of had they not been in the 
region visited by the war. Turnu-Sev- 
erinu is noted, however, as the point 
where Severinus once built a mighty 
tower; and notfarfrom the little hamlet 
may still be seen the ruins of Trajan's 
immemorial bridge. Where the 1 >anube is 
twelve hundred yards wide and nearly 
twenty feet deep Apollodorus of Damas- 
cus did not hesitate, at Trajan's com- 
mand, to undertake, the construction of 
a bridge with twenty stone and wooden 
arches. He bllilded well, for one or two 
of the stone piers still remain perfect, 
after a lapse of sixteen centuries, and 
eleven of them, more or less ruined, are 
yet visible at low water. Apollodorus 
was a man of genius, as his oilier work, 
the Trajan Column, proudly standing in 
Rome, amply testifies. No doubt he 
was richly rewarded by Trajan for con- 
structing a work which, flanked as it- 
was by noble fortifications, bound the 
newly captured Dacian colony to the 
Roman empire. What mighty men were 
these Romans, who carved their way 
along the Danube banks, hewing mads 
and levelling mountains at the same 
time that they engaged the savages of 
the locality in daily battle ! There 
were indeed giants in those days. 

When Ada-Kale is passed, and pretty 
Orsova, lying in slumbrous quiet at the 
foot of noble mountains, is reached, the 
List trace of Turkish domination is left 
behind. In future years, if the treaty 
of San Stefano holds, there will be little 
evidence of ( Ittoman lack of civilization 
anywhere on the Danube, for the forts 
of the Turks will gradually disappear, 
and the Mussulman cannot for an in- 



stant hold his own among Christians 
where he has no military advantage. 
But at Orsova, although the red fez and 
voluminous trousers are rarely seen, the 
influence of Turkey is keenly felt. It is 
in these remote regions of Hungary that 
the real rage against Russia and the 
burning enthusiasm and sympathy for 
the Turks were most openly expressed. 
Every cottage in the neighborhood is 
filled with crude pictures representing 
events of the Hungarian revolution ; and 
the peasants, as they look upon those re- 
minders of perturbed times, reflect that 
the Russians were instrumental in pre- 
venting the accomplishment of their 
dearest wishes. Here the Hungarian is 
eminently patriotic ; he endeavors as 
much as possible to forget that he and 
his arc bound to the empire of Austria, 
and he speaks of the German and the 
Slav, who are his fellow -subjects, with 
a sneer The people whom one encoun- 
ters in that corner of Hungary profess 
a dense ignorance of the German lan- 
guage, but if pressed can speak it glibly 
enough. I won an angry frown anil an 
unpleasant remark from an innkeeper 
because I did not know that Austrian 
postage-stamps are not good in Hungary. 
Such melancholy ignorance of the sim- 
plest details of existence seemed to my 
host meet subject for reproach 

Orsova became an important point as 
soon as the Turks and Russians were at 
war. The peasants of the liaitat staled 
as they saw long lines of travellers leav- 
ing the steamers which had come from 
Pesth and Hazias, and invading the 
two .small inns, usually more than 
half empty. Englishmen, Russians, 
Austrian officers sent down to keep care- 
ful watch upon the land, French and 
Prussian, Swiss and Belgian military 
attachis and couriers, journalists, artists, 
amateur army-followers, crowded the 



EUROPE J.Y STORM AND CALM. 



70.") 



two long streets and exhausted the mar- 
ket. Next came a hungry and thirsty 
mob of refugees from Widdin, — .lews, 
Greeks, and gypsies, — and these prom- 
enaded their variegated misery on the 
river banks from sunrise until sunset. 
Then out from Roumanian land poured 
thousands of wretched peasants, bare- 
footed, bare-headed, dying of starvation, 
fleeing from Turkish invasion, which 
happily never assumed large propor- 
tions. These poor people .slept on the 
ground, content with the shelter of house 
walls ; they subsisted on unripe fruits, 
and that unfailing fund of mild tobacco 
which every male being in all those 
countries invariably manages to secure. 
"Walking abroad in Orsova was no easy 
task, for one was constantly compelled 
to step over these poor fugitives, who 
packed themselves into the sand at noon- 
day, and managed for a few hours be- 
fore the cool eveniug breezes came to 
forget their miseries. The vast fleet of 
river steamers belonging to the Austrian 
company was laid up at Orsova, and 
dozens of captains, conversing in the 
liquid Slav, or the graceful Italian, or 
guttural German, were forever seated 
about the doors of the little cafis, smok- 
ing lung cigars and quaffing beakers of 
the potent white wine produced in Aus- 
trian vineyards. 

Opposite Orsova lie the Servian moun- 
tains, bold, majestic, inspiring. Their 
noble forests and the deep ravines be- 
tween them are exquisite in color when 
the sun flashes along their sides. A few 
miles below the point where the Hun- 
garian and Roumanian territories meet 
the mountainous region declines into 
foot-hills, and then to an uninteresting 
plain. The Orsovan dell is the culminat- 
ing point of all the beauty and grandeur 
of the Danubian hills. From one emi- 
nence richly laden with vineyards I 



looked out, on a fresh April morning, 
across a delicious valley tilled with pretty 
farms and white cottages, and orna- 
mented by long rows of shapely poplars. 
Turning to the right 1 saw Servia's bar- 
riers, shutting in from the cold winds 
the fat lands of the interior, vast hill- 
sides dotted from point to point with 
peaceful villages, iu the midst of which 
white churches with slender spires arose, 
and to the left the irregular line of the 
Roumanian peaks stood up, jagged and 
broken, against the horizon. Out from 
Orsova runs a rude highway into the 
rocky and savage back-country. The 
celebrated baths of Mehadia, the " hot 
springs" of the Austro-Hungarian em- 
pire, are yearly frequented by three or 
four thousand sufferers, who come from 
the European capitals to Temesvar, and 
are thence trundled iu diligences to the 
water-cure. But the railway is pene- 
trating even this far-off land, where 
ouce brigands delighted to wander, and 
Temesvar and Bucharest are now bound 
together by a daily "through-service" 
as regular as that between Pesth and 
Vienna. 

I sat one morning on the balcony of 
the diminutive inn known as " The 
Hungarian Crown," watching the sun- 
beams on the broad current of the 
Danube and listening to the ripple, the 
plash , and the gurgle of the swollen stream 
as it rushed impetuously against the 
banks. A group of Servians, in canoes 
light and swift as those of Indians, had 
made their way across the river and were 
struggling vigorously to present the cur- 
rent from carrying them below a favor- 
able landing-place. These tall, slender 
men, with bronzed faces and gleaming 
eyes, with their round skull-caps, their 
gaudy jackets, and ornamental gaiters, 
bore no small resemblance at a distance to 
certain of our North American red-skius. 



rm; 



ECRorr rx storm and cai v. 



Each 111:111 had a 1 » > 1 1 lt knife in his belt, 
and from experience 1 can say that a 
Servian knife is in itself a complete tool- 
chest. With its uno tough and keen 
blade one may skin a sheep, file a saw, 
split wood, mend a wagon, defend one's 
self vigorously, if need be, make a but- 
ton-hole, and eat one's breakfast. No 
Servian who adheres to the ancient 
costume would consider himself dressed 
unless the crooked knife hung from his 
girdle. Although the country side along 
the Danube is rough, and travellers are 
said to need protection among the Servian 
hills. I could not discover that the in- 
habitants wore Other weapons than these 
useful articles of cutlery. Yet they are 
daring smugglers, and sometimes openly 
defy the Hungarian authorities when 
discovered. •• Ah ! " said Master Josef, 
the head servant of the Hungarian crown, 
•• many a good tight have 1 seen in mid- 
stream, the boats grappled together, 
knives flashing, and our fellows draw- 
ing their pistols. All that, too. for a 
few flasks of Jsegotin, which is a musty, 
red. thick wine, that Heaven would for- 
bid e ton ommend to your honorable 
self and companions so long as 1 put in 
the cellar the pearl dew of yonder vine- 
yards." pointing to the vines of Or- 
sova. 

While the Servians were anxiously en- 
deavoring to land, and seemed to be in 
imminent dangerof upsetting, the roll of 
thunder was heard and a few drops 
rain fell with heavy plash. Master Josef 
forthwith began making shutters fast 
and tying the curtains, for ■• now we 
have a wind." 4110th he. And it 
came. As by magic the Servian shore 
was blotted out. and before me 1 eould 
little save the river, which seemed 
transformed into a roaring and foaming 
ocean. The refugees, the gypsies, the 
Jews, tlie Greeks scampered in all direc- 



tions. Then tremendous echoes awoke 
among the hills. Peal after peal echoed 
and reechoed until it seemed as if the 
cliffs must crack and crumble. Sheets 
of rain were blown by the mischievous 
winds, now full upon the unhappy fugi- 
tives, or now descended with seemingly 
crushiug force on the Servians in their 
dancing canoes. Then came vivid light- 
ning, brilliant and instant glances of 
electricity, disclosing the forests and 
hills for a moment, then seeming bj 
their quick departure to render the ob- 
31 iv more painful than before. The 
fiery darts were hurled by do/ens upon 
the devoted trees, and the tall and grace- 
ful stems were bent like reeds before 
the rushing of the blast, told swept 
through the vale, and shadows seemed 
to follow it. Such contrast with the lu- 
minous, lovely, semi-tropical afternoon, 
in the dreamy restfulness of which man 
and beast seemed settling into lethargy, 
was crushing. It pained and disturbed 
the spirit. Master Josef, who never lost 
an occasion to cross himself, and to do 
a few turns on a little rosary of amber 
beads, came and went in a kind of a 
dazed mood while the storm was at its 
height. Just as a blow was struck 
among the hills which seemed to make 
the earth quiver to its centre, the varlet 
approached, and modestly inquired if 
the "honorable society" — myself and 
chance companions — would visit that 
very afternoon the famous chapel in 
which the crown of Hungary lies buried. 
I glanced curiously at him. thinking that 

I iibly the thunder had addled his 

brain. " Oh. the honorable society may 
walk in sunshine all the way to the 
chapel at five o'clock '. " he said, with 
an encouraging grin. "These Danube 
storms come and go as quickly as a Tsi- 
gane from a hen-roost. See ! the thun- 
der has stopped its howling, and there is 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



707 



not a wink of lightning. Even the rain- 
drops are so few that one may almost 

walk between them." 

I returned to the balcony from whieli 
the storm had driven me, and was grati- 
fied by the sight of the mountain side 
studded with pearls, which a faint glow 
in the sky was gently touching. The 
Danube roared and foamed with mali- 
cious glee as the poor Servians were 
still whirled about on the water. But 
presently through the deep gorges, and 
along the sombre stream, and over the 
vineyards, the rocks, and the roofs of 
humble cottages stole a warm breeze, 
followed by dazzling sunlight, which 
returned in mad haste to atone for the 
displeasure of the wind and rain. In 
a few moments the refugees were again 
afield, spreading their drenched gar- 
ments on the wooden railings and 
stalking about in a condition narrowly 
approaching nakedness. A gypsy four 
feet high, clad in a linen shirt, and trou- 
sers so wide as to resemble petticoats, 
strolled thoughtlessly on the bank, sing- 
ing a plaintive melody, and now and 
then turning his brown face skyward 
as if to salute the sun. The child of 
mysterious ancestry, this wanderer from 
the East, this robber of roosts, and cun- 
ning worker in metals, possessed neither 
hat nor shoes ; his naked breast and his 
unprotected arms must suffer cold at 
night; yet lie seemed wonderfully happy. 
The Jews and Greeks gave him scornful 
glances, whieli he returned with quizzi- 
cal, provoking smiles. At last he threw 
himself down on a plank, from which 
the generous sun was rapidly drying the 
rain, and, coiling up as a dog might 
have done, he was soon asleep. 

With a marine glass I could see dis- 
tinctly every movement on the Servian 
shore. Close to the water's edge nestled 
a small village of neat white cottages. 



Around a little wdiarf hovered fifty or 
sixty stout farmers, mounted on sturdy 
ponies, watching tin' arrival of the " ]Uer- 
cui." the Servian steamer from Belgrade 
and the Sava river. The ■• Mercur" came 
pulling valiantly forward, as uncon- 
cerned as if no whirlwind had swept 
across her path, although she must have 
been in the narrow and dangerous canon 
of the " Iron Gates" when the blast and 
die shower were most furious. On the 
roads leading down the mountain sides 
I saw long processions of squealing and 
grunting swine, black, white, and gray, 
all active and self-willed, fighting each 
other for the right of way. Before 
each procession marched a swineherd 
playing on a rustic pipe, the sounds 
from which primitive instrument seemed 
to exercise Circean enchantment upon 
the rude Hocks. It was inexpressibly 
comical to watch the masses of swine 
after they had been enclosed in the 
"told--." — huge tracts fenced in, and 
provided with shelters at the corners. 
Each herd knew its master, and as he 
passed to and fro would salute him with 
a delighted squeal, whieli died away into 
■a M-ries of disappointed ami cynical 
groans as soon as the porkers had dis- 
covered that no evening repast was to 
be offered them. Good fare do these 
Servian swine find in the abundant pro- 
vision of acorns in the vast forests. The 
men who spend their lives in restraining 
the vagabond instincts of these vulgar 
animals may perhaps be thought a col- 
lection of brutal hinds; but on the 
contrary they are fellows of shrewd 
common sense and much dignity of feel- 
ing. Kara-George, the terror of the 

Turk at the beginning of the century. 
I he majestic character who won the ad- 
miration of Europe, whose genius as a 
soldier was praised by Napoleon the 
Great, and who freed his countrymen 



708 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



from bondage, — Kara-George was a 
swineherd in the woods of the Sehau- 
madia until the wind of the spirit fanned 
his brow and called him from his simple 
toil to immortalize his homely name. 

Master Josef and his fellows in < )rsova 
did not hate the Servians with the bitter- 
ness manifested towards the Roumani- 
ans, vet they considered them as aliens, 
and as dangerous conspirators against 
the public weal. •' Who knows at what 
moment they may go over to the Rus- 
sians?" was the constant cry. And in 
process of time they went; but although 
Master Josef had professed the utmost 
willingness to take tip arms on such an 
occasion, it does not appear that, he did 
it, doubtless preferring, on reflection, 
the quiet of his inn and his flask of white 
wine in the court-yard rather than an 
excursion among the trans-Danubian 
hills and the chances of an untoward 
fate at the point of a Servian knife. It 
is not astonishing that the two peoples 
do not understand each other, although 
only a strip of water separates their 
frontiers for a long stretch, lor the 
difference in language; and in its written 
form is a most effectual barrier to inter- 
course. The Servians learn something 
of the Hungarians' dialects, since they 
come to till the rich lands of the lianat 
in tin' summer season. Bulgarians and 
Servians by thousands find employment 
in Hungary in summer and return home 
when autumn sets in. But the dreams 
and ambitions of the two peoples have 
nothing in common. Servia looks long- 
ingly to Slavic unification, ami is anxious 
to secure for herself a predominance in 
the new nation to he moulded out of the 
old scattered elements. Hungary be- 
lieves that the consolidation of the Slavs 
would place her in a dangerous and 
humiliating [position, and conspires day 
and night to compass exactly the reverse 



of Servian wishes. Thus the two coun- 
tries are theoretically at peace and prac- 
tically at war. While the. conflict of 
1877 was in progress collisions between 
Servian and Hungarian were of almost 
daily occurrence. 

The Hungarian's intolerance of the 
Slav does not proceed from unworthy 
jealousy, but rather from an exaggerated 
idea of the importance of his own coun- 
try and of the evils which might befall 
it if the old Serb stock began to renew its 
ancient glory. In corners of Hungary, 
such as ( >rsova, the peasant imagines 
that his native land is the main world, 
and that the rest of Europe is an unnec- 
essary and troublesome fringe around 
the edges of it. There is a story of a 
gentleman in Pesth who went, to a dealer 
in maps and inquired for a globus of 
Hungary, showing that he imagined it to 
be the whole round earth. 

So fair were the land and the stream 
after the storm that I lingered until sun- 
set gazing out over river and on Servian 
hills, and did not accept Josef's invita- 
tion to visit the chapel of the Hungarian 
crown that evening. But next morn- 
ing before the sun was high I wandered 
alone in the direction of the Roumanian 
frontier, and by accident came upon the 
chapel. It is a modest structure, in a 
nook surrounded by tall poplars, and 
within is a simple chapel, with Latin in- 
scriptions. Here the historic crown re- 
poses, now that there is no longer any 
use for it at Presburg, the ancient capital. 
Here it was brought by pious hands after 
the troubles between Austria and Hun- 
gary were settled. During the revolu- 
tion tie' sacred bauble was hidden by 
the command of noblemen to whom it 
had been confided, and the servitors 
who concealed it at the behest of their 
masters were slain, lest in an indiscreet 
moment they might betray the secret. 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



709 



For thousands of enthusiasts this tiny 
chapel is the holiest of shrines, and 
should trouble come anew upon Hungary 
in the present perturbed times the crown 
would perhaps journey once more. 

It seemed pitiful that the railway 
should ever invade this out-of-the-way 
corner of Europe. But it was already 
crawling through the mountains; hun- 
dreds of Italian laborers were putting 
down the shining rails in woods and glens 
where no sounds save the song of birds or 
the carol of the infrequent passer-by had 
theretofore been heard. For the present, 
however, the old-fashioned, comfortless 
diligence keeps the roads ; the berib- 
boned postilion winds his merry horn, 
anil as the afternoon sun is getting low 
the dusty, antique vehicle rattles up to 
the court of the inn, the guard gets 
down, dusts the leather casing of the 
gun which nowadays he is never com 
pelled to use ; then he touches his square 
hat, ornamented with a feather, to the 
maids and men of the hostelry. When 
the mails are claimed, the horses re- 
freshed, and the stage is covered with its 
leathern hood, postilion and guard sit 
down together in a cool corner under the 
gallery in the court-yard and crack various 
small flasks of wine. They smoke their 
porcelain pipes, imported from Vienna, 
with the air of men of the world who 
have travelled and who could tell you a 
thing or two if they liked. They are 
never tired of talking of Mehadia, which 
is one of their principal stations. The 
sad-faced nobleman, followed by the 
decorous old man-servant in fantastic 
Magyar livery, who arrived in the dili- 
gence, has been to the baths. The mas- 
ter is vainly seeking cure, comes every 
year, and always supplies postilion and 
guard with the money to buy flasks of 
wine. This the postilion tells me and 
my fellows, and suggests that the " hon- 



orable society" should follow the worthy 
nobleman's example. No sooner is it 
done than postilion and guard kist?. our 
hands; which is likewise an evidence 
that they have travelled, are well met 
with every stranger and all customs, and 
know more than they say. 

The Romans had extrusive establish- 
ments at Mehadia. which they called 
the " Baths of Hercules," and it is in 
memory of this that a statue of the good 
giant stands in the square of the little 
town. Scattered through the hills, many 
inscriptions to Hercules, to Mercury, 
and to Venus have been found during 
the ages. The villages on the road 
thither are few and far between, and are 
inhabited by peasants decidedly Dacian 
in type. It is estimated that a million 
and a half of Roumanians are settled in 
Hungary, and in this section they are 
exceedingly numerous. Men and women 
wear showy costumes, quite barbaric and 
uncomfortable. The women seem deter- 
mined to wear as few garments as pos- 
sible and to compensate for lack of 
number by brightness of coloring. In 
many a pretty face traces of gypsy 
blood may be seen. This vagabond taint 
gives an inexpressible charm to a. face 
for which the Hungarian strain has al- 
ready done much. The coal-black hair 
and wild, mutinous eyes setoff to per- 
fection the pale face and exquisitely 
thin lips, the delicate nostrils and beau- 
tifully moulded chin. Angel or devil? 
queries the beholder. Sometimes he is 
constrained to think that the possessor 
of such a face has the mingled souls of 
saint and siren. The light undertone of 
melancholy which pervades gypsy beauty, 
gypsy music, gypsy manners, has an 
extremely remarkable fascination for all 
who perceive it. Even when it is almost 
buried beneath ignorance and animal 
craft it is still to be found in the gypsy 



710 



KrnopE ix sron.v axd calm. 



nature after diligent search. This strange 
race seems overshadowed by the sorrow 
of some haunting memory. Each indi- 
vidual belonging to the Tsiganes whom 
I saw impressed me as a fugitive from 
Fate. To look back was impossible ; of 
the present he was careless ; the future 
tempted him on. In their music one 
now and then hears hints of a desire to 
return to some tar-off and half-forgotten 
land. But this is rare. 

There is a large number of " civil- 
ized gypsies," so called, in the neigh- 
borhood of Orsova. I never saw one of 
them without a profound compassion for 
him, so utterly unhappy did he look in 
ordinary attire. The musicians who 
came nightly to play on the lawn in 
front of the Hungarian Crown inn be- 
longed to these civilized Tsieanes. They 
had lost all the freedom of gesture, the 
proud, half-savage stateliness of those 
who remained nomadic and untrammelled 
bv local law and custom. The old in- 
stinct was in their music, and sometimes 
there drifted into it the same mixture 
of saint and devil which I had seen in 
the " composite " faces. 

As soon as supper was set forth, 
piping hot and Hanked by flagons of 
beer and wine, on the lawn, and the 
guests had assembled to partake of the 
g 1 cheer, while yet the after-glow lin- 
gered along the Danube, these dusky 
musicians appeared and installed them- 
selves in a corner. The old stream's 
murmur could not drown the piercing 
and pathetic notes of the violin, the gen- 
tle wail of the guzla, or the soft thrum- 
ming of the rude tambourine. Little 
poetry as a spectacled and frosty Aus- 
trian officer might have in his soul, that 
little must have been awakened by the 
songs and the orchestral performances 
of the Tsiganes as the sun sank low. 
The dusk began to creep athwart the 



lawn and a cool breeze fanned the fore- 
heads of the listeners. When the light 
was all gone, these men, as if inspired 
hy the darkness, sometimes improvised 
most angelic melody. There was never 
any loud or boisterous note, never any 
direct, appeal to the attention. I iu- 
variably forgot the singers ancj players, 
and the music seemed a part of the har- 
mony of Nature. While the pleasant 
notes echoed in the twilight troops of 
jaunty young Hungarian soldiers, dressed 
in red hose, dark-green doublets, and 
small caps, sometimes adorned with 
feathers, sauntered up and down the 
principal street; the refugees huddled 
in corners and listened with delight; the 
Austrian officials lumbered by, pouring 
clouds of smoke from their long, strong, 
and inevitable cigars; and the dogs for- 
got their perennial quarrel for a few 
instants at a time. 

The dogs of Orsova and of all the 
neighboring country have many of the 

characteristics of their fellow-creatures 
in Turkey. Orsova is divided info 
•• heats," which are thoroughly and care- 
fully patrolled night and day by hands 
of doe,s, who recognize the limits of their 
domain and severely resent intrusion. 
In front of the Hungarian Crown a large 
dog, aided by a small yellow cur anil a 
black spaniel, mainly made up of ears 
ami tail, maintained order. The after- 
noon quiet was generally disturbed about 
four o'clock by tin' advent of a strange 
canine, who, with that expression of ex- 
treme innocence which always character- 
izes the animal that knows he is doing 
wrong, would venture on to the forbid- 
den ground. A low growl in chorus 

from the three guardians was the inev- 
itable preliminary warning. The new- 
comer usually seemed much surprised at 
this, and gave an astonished glance, 
then wagging his tail merrily, as much 



EUROPE IV STORM AXD CALM. 



711 



as to say, "Nonsense! 1 must have 
been mistaken," he approached anew. 
One of the trio of guardians there- 
upon sallied forth to meet him, fol- 
lowed by thp others a little distance 
behind. If the strange dog showed his 
teeth, assumed a defiant attitude, and 
seemed inclined to make his way through 
any number of enemies, the trio held a 
consultation, which I am bound to say 
almost invariably resulted in a light. 
The intruder would either fly yelping, 
or would work his way across the inter- 
dieted territory by means of a series of 
encounters, accompanied by the most 
terrific barking, snapping, and shriek- 
ing, and by a very considerable effusion 
of blood. The person who should inter- 
fere to prevent a dog-fight in Orsova 
would be regarded as a lunatic. Some- 
times a large white dog. accompanied by 
two shaggy animals resembling wolves 
so closely that it was almost impossible 
to believe them guardians of flocks of 
sheep, passed by the Hungarian Crown 
unchallenged ; but these were probably 
tried warriors, whose valor was so well 
known that they were no longer ques- 
tioned anywhere. 

The gypsies have in their wagons or 
following in their train small black dogs, 
of temper unparalleled for ugliness. It 
is impossible to approach a Tsigane tent 
or wagon without encountering a swarm 
of these diminutive creatures, whose 
rage is not only amusing, but sometimes 
rather appalling, to contemplate. Driv- 
ing rapidly by a camp one morning in a 
fanner's cart drawn by two stout horses 
adorned with jingling bells. I was fol- 
lowed by a pack of these dark-skinned 
animals. The bells awoke such rage 
within them that they seemed insane 
under its influence. As they leaped and 
snapped around me I felt like some 
traveller in a Russian forest pursued by 



hungry wolves. A dog scarcely six 
inches high and but twice as long would 
spring from the ground as if a pound of 
dynamite had exploded beneath him, 
and would make a desperate effort to 
throw himself into the wagon. Another, 
howling in impotent anger, would jump 
full at a horse's throat, would roll be- 
neath the feet of the horse, but in some 
miraculous fashion would escape unhurt, 
and would scramble upon a bank to try 
again. It was a real relief when the 
discouraged pack fell away. Had 1 shot 
one of the animals, the i;'yp*' cs would 
have found a way to avenge the death of 
their enterprising though somewhat too 
zealous camp-follower. Animals every- 
where on these border lines of the Orient 
are treated with much more fenderness 
than men and women are. The grandee 
who would scowl furiously in this wild 
region of the Banat if the peasants did 
not stand by the roadside and doff their 
hats in token of respect and submission 
would not kick a dog out of his way, and 
would manifest the utmost tenderness 
for his horses. 

The railway from Verciorova, on the 
frontier, runs through the large towns 
Pitesti and Craiova on its way to Bu- 
charest. It is a marvellous railroad : it 
climbs hills, descends into dee]) gullies, 
and has as little of the air line about it 
as a great river has, for the contractors 
built it on the principle of "keeping 
near the surface," and they much pre- 
ferred climbing ten high mountains to 
cutting one tunnel. Craiova takes its 
name, according to a somewhat misty 
legend, from John Assan, who was one 
of the Romano-Bulgarian kings, Craiova 
being a corruption of Crai Trim. (" King 
John"). This John was the same who 
drank his wine from a cup made out of 
the skull of the unlucky emperor Bald- 
win I. The old laws of Craiova gave 



712 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



their title to the Roumanian silver pieces 
now known as bafli. Slatina, farther 
down the line, on the river Altu ( the Aluta 
of the ancients), is a pretty town, where 
a proud and brave community love to 
recite to the stranger the valorous deeds 
of their ancestors. It is the centre from 
which have spread out most of the 
modern revolutionary movements in Rou- 
mania. " Little Wallachia," in which 
Slatina stands, is rich in well-tilled 
fields and uplands covered with fat cat- 
tle. It is as fertile as Kansas, and its 
people seemed to me more agreeable 
and energetic than those in and around 
Bucharest . 

He who clings to the steamers plying 
up and down the Danube sees much 
romantic scenery and many curious 
types, hut he loses all the real charm of 
travel in these regions. The future 
tourist, on his way to or from Bulgaria 
and the battle-fields of the " new cru- 
sade," will he wise if lie journeys leis- 
urely by farm-wagon — he will not be 
likely to find a carriage — along the 
Hungarian bank of the stream. I made 
the journey in April, when in that gentle 
southward climate the wayside was al- 
ready radiant with flowers and the mel- 
low sunshine was unbroken by cloud or 
rain. There were discomfort and dust, 
but there was a rare pleasure in the 
arrival at a quaint inn whose exterior 
front, boldly asserting itself in the 
bolder row of house-fronts in a long 
village street, was uninviting enough, 
but the interior of which was charming. 
In such a hostelry I always found the 
wharf master, in green coat and cap, 
asleep in an arm-chair, with the burgo- 
master and one or two idle landed pro- 
prietors sitting near him at a card-table, 
enveloped in such a cloud of smoke that 
one could scarcely see tlie long-necked 
tlasks of white wine which they were 



rapidly emptying. The host was a mas- 
sive man, with bulbous nose and sleepy 
eyes ; he responded to all questions with 
a, stare, and the statement that he did 
not know, and seemed anxious to leave 
everything in doubt until the latest 
moment possible. His daughter, who 
was brighter and less dubious in her 
responses than her father, was a slight 
gill, with lustrous black eyes, wistful 
lips, a perfect form, and black hair cov- 
ered with a linen cloth that the dust 
might not come near its glossy threads. 
When she made her appearance, flash- 
ing out of a huge dark room, which was 
stone paved, and arched overhead, and 
in which peasants sat drinking sour beer, 
she seemed like a ray of sunshine in the 
middle of night. But there was more 
dignity about, her than is to be found in 
most sunbeams ; she was modest and 
civil in answer, but understood no com- 
pliments. There was something of the 
pr in cess- reduced-in-circu instances in her 
demeanor. A royal supper could she 
serve, and the linen which she spread on 
the small wooden table in the back court- 
yard smelled of lavender. I took my 
dinners after the long days' rides, in 
inns which commanded delicious views 
of the Danube, — points where willows 
overhung the rushing stream, or where 
crags towered above it, or where it 
flowed in smooth, yet resistless, might 
through plains in which hundreds of 
peasants were toiling, their red-and- 
while costumes contrasting sharply with 
the brilliant blue of the sky and the 
tender green of the foliage. 

If tin- inns were uniformly cleanly and 
agreeable, so much could not be said for 
the villages, which were sometimes de- 
cidedly dirty. The cottages of the 
peasants — that is of the agricultural la- 
borers — were windowless to a degree 
which led me to look for a small and 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



i\;\ 



dull-eyed race; but the elegant orbs of 
youths and maidens in all this Ban at 
land are rarely equalled in beauty. I 
found it in my heart to object to the 
omnipresent swine. These cheerful ani- 
mals were sometimes so domesticated 
that they followed their masters and 
mistresses afield in the morning. In 
this section of Hungary, as indeed in 
most parts of Europe, the farm-houses 
are all huddled together in compact vil- 
lages, and the lands tilled by the dwell- 
ers in these communities extend for 
miles around them. At dawn the pro- 
cession of laborers goes forth, and at 
sunset it returns. Nothing can give a 
better idea of rural simplicity and peace 
than the return of the peasants of a 
hamlet at eventide from their vineyards 
and meadows. Just as the sun was 
deluging the broad Danube with glory 
before relinquishing the current to the 
twilight's shades I came, in the soft 
April evening, into the neighborhood of 
Drenkova. A tranquil afterglow was 
here and there visible near the hills, 
which warded off the sun's passionate 
farewell glances at the vines and flowers. 
Beside the way, on the green banks, sat 
groups of children clad with paradisaical 
simplicity, awaiting their fathers and 
mothers. At a vineyard's hedge a sweet 
girl, tall, stately, and melancholy, was 
twining a garland in the cap of a stout 
young fellow who rested one broad 
hand lightly upon her shoulder. Old 
women, bent and wrinkled, hobbled out 
from the fields, getting help from their 
sons or grandsons. Sometimes I met a 
shaggy white horse drawing a cart, in 
which a dozen sonsie lasses, their faces 
browned by wind and their tresses 
blown back from their brows in most 
bewitching manner by the libertine 
breeze, were jolting homeward, singing 
as they went. The young men in their 



loose linen garments, with their primi- 
tive hoes and spades on their shoulders, 
were as goodly specimens of manly 
strength and beauty as one could wish 
to look upon. It hurt me to see them 
stand humbly ranged in rows as I passed. 
But it was pleasant to note the fer- 
vor with which they knelt around the 
cross, rearing its sacred form amid the 
waving grasses. They knew nothing of 
the outer world, save from time to time 
the Emperor claimed certain of their 
number for his service, and that perhaps 
their lot might lead them to the great 
city of Budapest. Everywhere as far 
as the eye could reach the land was cul- 
tivated with greatest care, and plenty 
seemed the lot of all. The peasant lived 
in an ugly and windowless house be- 
cause his father and grandfather had 
done so before him, not because it was 
necessary. It was odd to sec girls tall 
as Dian, and as fair, bending their pretty 
bodies to come out of the contempti- 
ble little apertures in the peasant houses 
called "doors." 

Drenkova is a long street of low cot- 
tages, with here and there a two-story 
mansion, to denote that the proprietors 
of the land reside there. As I ap- 
proached the entrance to this street I 
saw a most remarkable train coming to 
meet me. One glance told me that it 
was a large company of gypsies, who had 
come up from Rournania, and were going 
northward in search of work or plunder. 
My driver drew rein, and we allowed the 
swart Bohemians to pass on, — a courtesy 
which was gracefully acknowledged with 
a singularly sweet smile from the driver 
of the first cart. There were about two 
hundred men and women in this wagon 
train, audi verily believe that there were 
twice as many children. Each cart, 
drawn by a small Roumanian pony, con- 
tained two or three families huddled 



14 



EUROPE rif STORM AND CALM. 



together, and seemingly lust in contem- 
plation of the beautiful sunset ; for your 
real gypsy is akeen admirer of nature and 
her charms. Some of the women were 
intensely hideous: age had made them as 
unattractive as in youth they had been 
pretty ; others were graceful and well 
formed. Many won' hut a single gar- 
ment. The men were wilder than any 
that I had ever before seen : their matted 
hair, their thick lips, and their dark eyes 
gave them almost the appearance of 
negroes. One or two of them had been 
foraging, and bore sheeps' heads and 
hares, which they had purchased or 
"taken" in the village. They halted 
as soon as they had passed me, and pre- 
pared to go into camp; so I waited a 
little to observe them. During the proc- 
ess of arranging the carts for the night 
one of the women became enraged at the 
father of her brood because he would not 
aid her in the preparation of the simple 
tent under which the family was to re- 
pose. The woman ran to him. clinching 
her list and screaming forth invective, 
which. I am convinced, had I understood 
it, and had it been directed at me. I 
should have found extremely disagree- 
able. After thus lashing the culprit 
with language for some time, she broke 
forth into screamsand danced frantically 
around him. Hi' arose, visibly dis- 
turbed, and I fancied that his .savage 
nature would come uppermost, and that 
he might, be impelled to give her a brutal 
beating. But he, on the contrary, ad- 
vanced leisurely towards her and spat 
upon the ground with an expression of 
extreme contempt. She seemed to feel 
this much more than she would have felt 
a blow, and her fury redoubled. She 
likewise spat; he again repeated the 
contemptuous act; and. after both had 
gratified the anger which was consuming 
them, they walked off in different direc- 



tions. The battle was over, and I was 
not sorry to notice a few minutes later 
that pater familias had thought better of 
his conduct, and was himself spreading 
the tent and setting forth his wandering 
Lures and Penates. 

A few hundred yards from the point 
where these wanderers had settled for 
night I found some rude huts, in which 
other gypsies were residing permanently. 
These huts were mere shelters placed 
against, steep banks or hedges, and 
within there was no furniture save one 
or two blankets, a camp-kettle, and 
some wicker baskets. Young girls 
twelve or thirteen years of age crouched 
naked about a smouldering fire. They 
d'nl not. seem unhappy or hungry ; and 
none of these strange people paid any 
attention to me as I drove on to the inn, 
which, oddly enough, was at some dis- 
tance from the main village, hard by 
the Danube side, in a gully between 
the mountains, where coal-barges lay 
moored. The Servian mountains, cov- 
ered from base to summit with dense 
forests, cast a. deep gloom over the vale. 
In a garden, ona terrace behind the inn, 
by (he light of a flickering candle, I ate a 
frugal dinner, and went to bed much im- 
pressed by the darkness, in such striking 
contrast to the delightful and picturesque 
scenes through which I hail wandered all 
day. 

But I speedily forgot this next morn- 
ing when the landlord informed me 
that, instead of toiling over the road 
along the crags to Orsova, whither I 
was returning. I could embark on a tug- 
boat bound for that cheerful spot, and 
could thus inspect the grand scenery 
of the lie.!; Gates from the river. The 
swift express boats, which in time of 
peace run from Vienna to Rustchuk, 
whisk the traveller so rapidly through 
these famous defiles that he sees little 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



715 



else than a panorama of high, rocky 
walls. But the slow-moving and clumsy 
tug, with its train of barges attached, 
offers 1 tetter facilities to the lover of 
natural beauty. We had dropped clown 
only a short distance below Drenkova 
before we found the river path filled 
with eddies, miniature whirlpools, de- 
noting the vicinity of the gorges into 
which the great current is compressed. 
These whirlpools all have names : one 
is called the "Buffalo;" a second, "Ker- 
daps ; " a third is known as the " De- 
vourer." For three or four hours we ran 
in the shade of mighty walls of porphyry 
and granite, on whose tops were forests 
of oaks and elms. I could fancy that the 
veins of red porphyry running along 
the face of the granite were blood- 
stains, the tragic memorials of ancient 
battles ; for, wild and inaccessible as 
this region seems, it has been fought 
over and through in sternest fashion. 
Perched on a little promontory on the 
Servian side is the tiny town of Poretch, 
where the brave shepherds and swine- 
herds fought the Turk, against whose 
oppression they had risen, until they 
were overwhelmed by numbers, and 
their leader, Hadji Nikolos, lost his 
head. The Austrians point out with 
pride the cave on the tremendous Hank 
of Mt. Choukourou, where, two cen- 
turies ago, an Austrian general, at the 
head of seven hundred men, all that 
was left to him of a goodly army, sus- 
tained a three months' siege against 
large Turkish forces. This cave is 
perched high above the road at a point 
where it absolutely commands it, and 
the government of to-day, realizing its 
importance, has had it fortified and 
furnished with walls pierced by loop- 
holes. Trajan fought his way through 



these defiles in the very infancy of the 
Christian era; and in memory of his 
first splendid campaign against the 
Dacians he carved in the solid nick 
the letters, some of which are still visi- 
ble, and which, by their very grandilo- 
quence, offer a mournful commentary 




HUNGARIAN TYPES. 

on the fleeting nature of human great- 
ness. Little did he think when his 
eyes rested lovingly on this inscription, 
beginning : — 

" Imp. Cczs. D. NervcB Filius Nerva. 
Trajaniis. Germ. Pont. Maximus," 

that Time, with profane hand, would 
wipe out the memory of many of his 
glories and would undo all the work 
that he had done. 



7]() EUROrE IN STORM A.Xh CALM. 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-ON E. 

A Journey through Roumania in War Time. — A Khan. — Its Advantages and Disadvantages. — Primitive 
Life of the Villagers. —On the Great Plains. — The Water Wells. — The Approaches to Bucharest.— 
Roumanian Legends. — The Froutier of Europe. — French Influence in Roumania. — Bucharest and 
New i Irleans. 

MIDNIGHT. A lonely khan on the They had forgotten for a few moments 

crest of a Roumanian hill, at to bay the moon, and had snatched a 

whose base stretches away a forest, fitful nap; but our third shout brings 

Eastward, a broad plateau, impressive them around us in almost formidable 

by reason of its vastness. Here and numbers. One or two brutes leap up to 

there, dotting the darkness which we snap at us, and the little horses snort 

have left behind us, camp-fires, with with terror; for your true Roumanian 

rude figures seated around them. The dog has very much of the wolf left in 

musical clink of a hammer on a gyp- him, and will lunch off a live traveller 

sy's anvil is borne to us on the breeze: from time to time, while a dead one is 

the brown Bohemian is repairing a team- always acceptable. Just as we meditate 

ster's cart. lie will labor all night, and firing our revolvers into the pack of 

to-morrow will slumber peacefully in the clamorous dogs a curious figure ap- 

shade of a tree. Midnight, and we are proaches. One glance is sufficient to 

hungry and weary ; so we raise our reveal that it is the night-watchman of 

voices in a prolonged shout. No an- the locality. He is a shambling, awk- 

swer. ward youth, clad in red leggings, a 

Hut presently a huge black mass stuffed short jacket, and a sheepskin 

comes lumbering towards us. It is a cap. In one hand he carries a long and 

water-buffalo, lie marches slowly, sol- antiquated gun, in the other a knife, in a 

enmly u|i to the horses, sniffs them wooden scabbard, from which an elab- 

contemptuously, then stands impudently orately carved handle of bone protrudes. 

eying us, wagging his stupid head, Without vouchsafing us a single word 

covered with baked mud, to and fro, he steps to the side of the khan's low 

and almost persuading us that lie con- wall, and in a shrill voice addresses a 

templates an attack upon our party with series of reproaches to some unknown 

his crooked, useless horns. Is he the person within. The language is not 

guardian of the khan? choice, so I will not repeat it. Presently 

We shout again, and charge on the ,-i wide door swings open, and the youth, 

water-buffalo, forcing him by smart saluting us with the knife, shambles 

blows with our whips to retire, moan- into the shadows again, the dogs, who 

ing, and evidently considering himself a evidently recognize his authority, re- 

unich-iii jured beast. Still no answer. spectl'ullv following him. 

We hatter at the door of the khan Dismounting from our jaded horses 

with all our might, and once more halloo we enter the chief room of the khan. 

with full force. Now the dons awaken. On its mud lloor half-a-dozen figures are 



ECROTE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



Ill 



stretched, and we can dimly see that 
they are human. Near the wall a large 
black hog reclines, indulging in dreams 
of a porcine paradise. The light of the 
feel ile lamp which the master of the 
khan carries in his hand enables us to 
see this, as well as to remark that fowls 
roost over the fireplace, and that a gaunt 
dog shows his teeth from a recess near 
that occupied by the swine. Ou the 
right hand from the entrance is a small 
loom, the only furniture in which is a 
long woodeu bench in front of a coarse 
counter and a few casks of wine backed 
against the wall. On the left is the 
room in which we are to sleep. A low 
divan extends around three sides of this 
small and uninviting chamber, and on the 
window-sills are placed painted images 
of St. George and St. Michael. A 
rosary hangs from a wooden peg, and 
an ancient gun, of such complicated 
mechanism that it must require a liberal 
education to lire it off, stands in a corner. 
A Turkish water-basin and pitcher of 
beaten metal sit on the floor. A faint 
odor of burned garlic and cheap wine 
pervades the whole khan, and we awake 
in the morning impressed with the feel- 
ing that we have been immersed in a bath 
impregnated with those subtle aromas. 

The host, who is the only person in 
the village who appears to possess a 
whole coat, looks bewildered when asked 
by our guide if he can furnish the mate- 
rials for breakfast. He rolls a cigarette, 
looks helplessly from side to side, and 
at last begins a series of apologies. 
The hens had laid some eggs yesterday, 
but Russian officers on the way to Bul- 
garia had purchased them. lie does 
not like to kill his chickens, lie is not 
sure there is any bread left in the house. 
As for meat, where can it be found? 
Certainly none of the inhabitants have 
any. Cheering prospect! On what, 



then, do the villagers subsist? The 
guide leads us to the door opening into 
the huge barn-yard of the khan and points 
to the driver of our wagon, who is seated 
on the ground, with a liit of straw spread 
before him. On this straw is a small 
loaf of black bread, a huge piece of 
white cheese, and a little clay pot tilled 
with coarse hominy. Near by stands an 
earthen vase containing water. "That 
is the stuff that the villagers eat." said 
the guide. ".Sometimes they take the 
trouble to cook meat ; it is easy enough 
to get, but they are generally too lazy to 
prepare it. See, this is the end of the 
world ! I low can you expect civilization 
here?" We go out through a gate in 
the wall, and look at the village. My 
first thought is that I have suddenly been 
transported to Africa. Surely, these 
low, wattled huts, with round tops, with 
tiny doors, and scarcely any windows, 
are African in form ; and the dark faces 
peering suspiciously from behind bits 
of fencing, are they not those of 
negroes ? 

The strong men and women are afield, 
working actively before the heat of the 
day comes on, and only the children, 
the superannuated folk, and the dogs 
remain in the village. Most of the 
youthful population from the age of four 
to fourteen is naked, and leaps and 
runs unashamed along the hard roads 
between the huts. The only indication 
of real civilization in this community is 
a steam threshing-machine, which one 
of the landed proprietors of the neigh- 
borhood erected only last year. There 
is no church, no school, no public build- 
ing of any kind. No inhabitant seems 
to know anything of the country ten 
miles beyond his village. There is 
more intelligence among the wandering 
gypsies than in these stupid tillers of 
the soil, who are content with so little, 



718 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and who faiicy that the Roumanian prin- 
cipality is the whole world. 

This is. however, ;m exceptionally 
degraded section. We have passed 
through neat and handsome villages, 
where the small cottages, with the noisy 
storks clacking on their roofs, were 
grouped in picturesque fashion, and 
where the Greek church-spire pointed 
heavenward, and the primary school was 
housed in a decent structure. Pretty 
"iris in gay costumes were gathered at 
the fountains, and stout men leading 
bullocks attached to carts laden with the 
crops from the rich lands dotted their 
caps and sainted us gracefully. Hut 
here, in this sun-baked, sun-swept, sun- 
burnished hind, the men arc surly, the 
women ugly, the children saucy and vi- 
cious. We begin to feel out of temper 
with this strange Roumanian province. 

Presently we recover our equanimity, 
for our wagoner, having thoughtfully 
finished his own breakfast first, manages 
to collect scraps enough for us, and my 
companions and I can at last ride on 
across the seemingly endless plains, 
through the forests of rustling corn, 
towards Bucharest. The sun is hot; 
each horse as he plunges his hoofs into 
the tine sand in the way causes a dense 
cloud of dust to rise. As far as the eye 
can reach we can see the level plain 
before us. Mild a long row of well-sweeps 
— which seem beckoning to us with their 
weird arms to hasten forward — marks 
the spots at which we must not fail to 
pause, and refresh our horses with 
water. The Roumanian traveller offers 
drink to his steed every half hour ; the 
beast moistens his lips, pricks up his 
ears, which were beginning to droop, and 
continues, much encouraged. 

The distances between these wells are 
strewn with the skeletons of bullocks 
and horses which have perished by the 



way : the deadening heat under which 
unfortunate animals are often compelled 
to drag heavy burdens twelve or sixteen 
hours daily is fatal to them. It is a 
painful sight to sec poor oxen, with 
tongues lolling out and eyes protruding 
from their sockets, struggling to reach a 
well before the (lea Ill-stroke falls upon 
them. The unlucky teamster who finds 
himself stranded on the sands by the 
loss of his team betakes himself to the 
whimsical objurgation of which the Rou- 
manian peasants an 1 so fond, then 
lights his cigarette and sits down philo- 
sophically until help arrives. In the 
open country in Roumania, as in Turkey, 
no one takes the precaution to bury 
carrion ; and he who has ever been un- 
fortunate enough to pitch his camp in 
the vicinity of some perished beasts of 
burden will never forget it. 

On our journey from the Danube back 
to Bucharest we discovered that the 
only way to secure attention in the 
Roumanian villages of the section 
through which we were then passing was 
to command it. The peasants under- 
stood commerce but very poorly; an 
offer to buy food and grain was received 
much as a request for arms would be in 
Western Europe ; but peremptory orders, 
though not much to the peasant's taste, 
were effectual. In this he much resem- 
bles his Bulgarian neighbor on the other 
side of the Danube. The stubborn- 
ness of the Roumanian with regard to 
some matters is remarkable, and is 
doubtless attributable to the indepen- 
dence that has crept into his character 
with the adoption of the exceedingly 
liberal new political constitution of the 
country. In endeavoring to purchase 
some of the bright although coarsely 
patterned carpets which the peasant 
women weave there is no chance for 
barter. You may take or leave a car- 



EUROrE IN STORJIf AND CALM. 



719 



pet, as you please : no persuasion can 
alter the price primarily fixed upon it. 

Perhaps the most remarkable feature 
of Roumania is the enormous difference 
between the villages and the towns of 
moderate size, as well as the cities. 
Louis Blanc says that in France there 
is an abyss between the city and the 
country : and this would certainly seem 
to be the case in the Wallachian princi- 
pality. The towns are full of activity, 
and in certain kinds of trade manifest 
real energy ; but five miles from any 
town most of the villages are semi- 
barbaric. They spoke with discouraged 
tone of the burdens of war and the slow 
progress of education consequent upon 
the poverty of the country. But it 
must not be supposed that Roumania is 
indifferent to the cause of national edu- 
cation. The constitution provides for a 
liberal primary instruction, and renders 
it compulsory " wherever schools are 
established." Each village or district is 
supposed to provide funds for the sup- 
port of free schools, but the villagers 
plead their extreme misery as an excuse, 
and prefer to keep their children steadily 
at work as soon as they are strong 
enough to go afield, rather than to ac- 
cord them time to study. There were, 
nevertheless, but a few years since, 
nearly one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
sand children frequenting rural primary 
schools, and over sixty thousand were 
receiving elementary education in city 
schools. Instruction in Roumania is di- 
vided, as in France, into three grades, — 
primary, secondary, and superior or pro- 
fessional. In the highest grade the 
Roumanians have numerous establish- 
ments which will bear favorable com- 
parison with similar ones in other lauds. 

The khan, the monastery, and the 
villager's hut being the only shelters for 
the traveller across the mighty plains or 



through the rugged mountains of the 
principality, it is not astonishing that 
when he arrives in Bucharest, the capi- 
tal, he is ready to bestow upon it all the 
extravagant titles which it has received 
during the last generation, such as -'The 
City of Pleasure," " Paris in the East," 
" The Wanderer's Paradise, "etc. After 
months of weary wandering in Turkey in 
Europe, he who reaches the well-kept 
and tidy streets of the handsome new 
quarter of Bucharest, — who finds himself 
once more dazzled by the glitter of Eu- 
ropean uniforms and surrounded by evi- 
dence of luxury and fashion, the very 
memory of which had begun to fade from 
his mind, — is amazed and enchanted. 
It is like coming out of a dreary desert 
directly upon a garden filled with choice 
and beautiful flowers, with rippling riv- 
ulets and plashing fountains. We en- 
tered Bucharest from the plains, and so 
its picturesqueness and the magic of the 
change were both enhanced. Advancing 
rapidly, two hours before sunset, towards 
the town, which I could see before me 
miles away, I could observe nothing 
specially attractive in its appearance. 
But as I reached the vicinity of a long 
line of massive ancient buildings in the 
outskirts of Bucharest the sun was just 
deluging their gayly painted and deco- 
rated walls with floods of light. The 
picture was a lovely one, and distinctly 
original. I rode on in a kind of spell. 
produced by the mystical afterglow, 
through narrow lanes lined on either side 
with liliputian houses set down in the 
middle of green lawns ; under frowning 
arches ; through alleys paved with stones, 
each one of which seemed struggling out 
of the earth to smite the impertinent 
new-comer ; past a convent with its por- 
tals covered with pictures of saints and 
martyrs ; past a grim modern barrack, 
in front of which stood a swart sentry 



720 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



boldiug a drawn sword ; then over a 
naked parade-ground ; and, finally, in 
rugged and unimposing procession, my 
companions and 1 drew rein on a boule- 
vard no whit, inferior in magnificence, as 
far as il extended, to those of Paris, and 
alighted at a palatial hotel, which formed 
a curious contrast to the khan before 
whose door a few evenings previous we 
had loudly clamored. 

The Roumanians are very proud of 
their capital, which is the most impor- 
tant city in all the Danuliian principal- 
ities, and has an entertaining history. 
Belgrade is but a miserable village coin- 
pared with Burn reset (pronounced Boii- 
courechti, if you wish to represent 
faithfully to yourself the Wallachiau 
name of the city). There are so many 
legends concerning the origin of this 
quaint name that people generally choose 
that, which pleases their fancy most. 
The intelligent, classes seem to divide 
their preference between two stories. 
The first explains the manner in which 
Bucharest gained the sobriquet of " City 
of Pleasure." It is related that once 
upon a time, when the Turks had in- 
vaded Wallachia, before retiring they 
demanded a tribute of ten thousand 
ducats and five hundred boys. <■ real 
was the indignation at this insolent 
demand, and the result was a battle, in 
which Mirzea the Elder defeated the 
Ottomans with terrific slaughter, anil 
Compelled the survivors to fly. Thank- 
ful for his victory, he built a memorial 
church and a princely palace at a spot 
which is now the site of Bucharest, and 
which is supposed to have gained its 
name at that time from the many rejoic- 
ings oxer victory, as bucurie in the Rou- 
manian tongue means ••joy." This 
legend being somewhat misty, others 
believe that Bucharest takes its name 
from an historical shepherd named Bucur, 



who in ancient times pastured his flock 
on a hill now occupied by the cathedral 
and legislative palace, and who had 
there built a chapel to St. Athanasius, 
as well as a hut for himself. His chil- 
dren arc supposed to have taken the name 
of the Bucuresci, the plural of Bucur, 
according to the custom, and to have 
given it to the hamlet which their father 
had founded. Macarius, the Patriarch 
of Antioch, who visited the town about 
the middle of the seventeenth century, 
has left in his memoirs the statement 
that it then had oue hundred thousand 
inhabitants, six thousand houses, and 
forty churches and monasteries. Since 
that time, despite most frightful visita- 
tions of pestilence, — to which it appears 
to have been particularly subject dining 
the last, century, — despite conflagrations 
and wars, and foreign occupations, it 
has grown to comprise within its limits 
over two hundred and fifty thousand 
people. The plague has not visited 
Bucharest since 1813, when seventy thou- 
sand persons perished in less than six 
weeks. The principality hardly rallied 
for a generation after this crushing blow. 
Turk, Russian, ami Austrian made 
themselves very much at home in Bucha- 
rest in the eighteenth century, and one 
can excuse some of the extreme jealousy 
which Roumanians of the present day 
feci with regard to strangers when one 
remembers how unhappy their experience 
of foreigners has been. When the Rus- 
sians first, came into the country, in 1S77, 
numbers of tin' elder inhabitants groaned 

aloml :mil exclaimed, "What shall we 
lose this time ? " 

Bucharest can be reached from the 
capitals of Western Europe by three 
routes, the most direct and important 
being the railroad leading through the 
Austrian Bukoviua and by way of Lem- 
berg and Cracow to Vienna ; the second a 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



721 



railway passing through the fertile re- 
gions of Little Wallachia to the Danube 
bank, and thence to Orsova, in Hungary, 
where it now connects with the branch 
tapping the main line from Pesth to 
Vienna ; and the third by steam-boat on 
the Danube from Vienna or Pesth to 
Ginrgevo, the Roumanian port opposite 
Rustchuk, in Bulgaria, and one of the 
most important of the Russian stations 
during the war witli Turkey. Four days 
of steady travel by express trains and the 
expenditure of a little more than a hun- 
dred dollars in gold for fares and trans- 
port of baggage will take the traveller 
from Paris to Bucharest by the most 
direct route. 

The Roumanian gentleman is usually 
educated in France, and always pre- 
serves the fondest remembrance and 
liveliest affection for that cheerful 
country. Indeed, the stranger who 
plunges into Rouniania without any pre- 
vious knowledge of its history or charac- 
ter can almost persuade himself that he 
has fallen upon a French province in 
the Orient. The uniforms of gendarmes 
at the railway stations, of customs offi- 
cials, of policemen, are French in pat- 
tern ; the army officers seem to have just 
left the barracks of Paris ; and French 
is spoken with great purity and with no 
perceptible foreign accent by all edu- 
cated people. The Roumanians, like 
the Russians, appear to possess an ex- 
traordinary facility for acquiring foreign 
languages. Now that they have a Ger- 
man prince to rule over them, the upper 
classes cultivate the German language, 
and the names of the fashionable trades- 
men on the principal streets end in em 
or ein, and are prefaced with the respect- 
able and venerable patronymics of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jew 
has a certain commercial force and in- 
fluential position in the principality, al- 



though he is bitterly hated and often sub- 
jected to downright abuse by the native 
Roumanians. In a small town near 
J assy, during my visit to Roumania in 
the spring of last year, two Jews were 
beaten almost to death, with circum- 
stances of barbarous and bestial cruelty 
attending the ferocious punishment, 
simply because one of them had given a 
quick answer to a police-master who 
told him that Jews had no business to 
be sitting outside their houses late at 
night. Both Russians and Roumanians 
are intolerant and ungenerous in a star- 
tling degree with regard to the Hebrew 
trader. It is also to be said that the 
Jew gives considerable provocation, and 
that his extreme sharpness in money 
matters provokes envy and a desire on 
the part of the ignorant and often fa- 
natical agricultural population of Rou- 
mania to get even with him by means 
of sundry well-bestowed thrashings and 
kickiugs. Thousands of Jews followed 
the Russian army into Roumania and 
down to the Danube, and a recital of 
some of the expedients to which they 
resorted for amassing fortunes speedily 
would go far in the minds of many to 
excuse the extreme measures sometimes 
taken against them. It is probable 
that as Roumania becomes more gener- 
ally intelligent and prosperous a preju- 
dice which is degrading and unworthy of 
the civilization of the nineteenth century 
will die away, and the Hebrew will pur- 
sue those callings for which he has es- 
pecial fitness unrestrained and without 
fear of ill-treatment. 

In midsummer there are many charac- 
teristics in the life of Bucharest which 
remind the American of New Orleans. 
Both are lowland cities ; both allow the 
visitor to realize to the full the inex- 
pressible witchery of the strange south- 
ern twilight and the glamour of restful 



'22 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



afternoons ; and both have an immense 
vagabond population. As New Orleans 
has the vagrant negro, so Bucharest has 

the gypsy, the joyous, thievish, patient, 
long-suffering, and, on the whole, mueh- 
to-be-admired Tsigane. The mystic 
children of the East number more than 
three hundred thousand in Moldavia and 
Wallachia, the two ancient provinces 
now definitely united under the name 
of Roumania, and naturally there are 
many thousands of them in Bucharest. 
The race has been freed from slavery 
only about twenty years, and is still 
much lower in the intellectual and moral 
scale than our freedmen of the .Southern 
lowlands. The Tsiganes emigrated by 
thousands from Roumania into Austria 
and Hungary as soon as the war began. 
They possess the impudence of the de- 
mon, and are masters in the art of lying. 
But little is expected of them, and the 
Bucharestians, who are in general de- 
cent, and in many respects refined, folks, 
complacently allow gypsy women un- 
clad to bathe in broad daylight in the 
river Dimbovitza, which courses directly 
through the middle of the populous city. 
They say, -'It is only a gypsy; and 
what does it matte]'?" 

The visitor to the Roumanian capital 
must beware of one danger if he wishes 
to continue in (he good graces of the cit- 
izens. He must ou all occasions, and 
with extreme gusto, praise the Dimbo- 



vitza as the most charming of European 
streams. It really is nothing of the 
sort; it is a small yellow current, and 
looks so uninviting that one can scarcely 
understand how the gypsy beauties can 
consent to lave their dusky persons in it 
But every descendant of Trajan's colo- 
nists believes it to be a stream quite as 
classical as the Tiber, and a loving 
couplet in the soft Roumanian language 
asserts — 

" Dimbovitza, loveliest water! 
lie who thinks can never leave thee." 

Let me add that this superstition, 
which would be rather pretty if the 
water were clearer, has thousands of 
believers among the lower classes, who 
are eminently superstitious. The gypsy 
mason, before he lays the foundations of 
the stone house which he is engaged to 
build, slyly measures the shadow of 
some unwary passer-by with a branch 
which he buries in the soil where the 
nether stones are to repose. He and 
all companions in his craft throughout 
Roumania believe that the person whose 
shade is thus measured will die soon 
thereafter, and that his spirit is doomed 
to haunt the house when it is built. 
Each house has its $tahi&, or spirit, of 
this kind, and many wondrous stories 
are told of their mysterious appearances 
and disappearances. 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



723 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO. 



Notes on Bucharest. — Streets anil Street Types. — The Wallachian Soldiers. — Conscripted Peasantry. — 
Roumanian Independence. — Priests and Churches. 



BUT to return to Bucharest. It has 
a principal street called the " Podan 
Mogosoi" (so'i being pronounced as if it 
were cho'i). This runs from south to 
north through the city, and along its 
sides are ranged the principal hotels, the 
cafes, the one pretty theatre (Teatra 
Nationalu), the palace of the reigning 
prince, some of the ministerial offices, 
and nearly all of the consular and diplo- 
matic residences. Bucharest has always 
been considered an important point for 
the maintenance of diplomatic agents, as 
from thence one gets a wide lookout 
over Turkey in Europe; and all the great 
powers have handsome mansions estab- 
lished there, in which keen consular 
agents with diplomatic functions keep a 
sharp watch on each other and write long 
reports to their governments. In inter- 
vals of leisure they amuse themselves 
with attending to court etiquette, and 
with the pleasant and brilliant society of 
this odd capital, so far away from the 
shining centres of Western Europe. 
Many of these agents have written clever 
books on the Roumanians and their neigh- 
bors. Beyond these diplomatic mansions 
the Podan Mogosoi leads past one, or at 
most two, story houses, set down in little 
gardens, until it reaches the Chaussee. 
This pretty park, with fine drive-ways 
running through it, was named the 
" Chauss6e Kisselef" (Kisselef road), 
after the Russian general, who originated 
its plan and urged the inhabitants to 
create it, when he was stationed there 



years ago. In spring and summer it is 
a delightful promenade, and from seven 
to ten o'clock on summer evenings all the 
ladies of Bucharest society are to be seen 
there, languidly reposing in their car- 
riages, and sipping ices. Bucharest has, 
I should think, as many carriages as New 
York, for there are on all occasions 
hundreds to be had if wanted, and the 
drivers urge their horses forward at such 
a rattling pace, except during the grand 
procession of fashion on the Ghaussie, 
that the stranger finds some little diffi- 
culty in keeping his seat. These drivers 
in Bucharest, and in most of the large 
Roumanian towns, are members of the 
sect of Russian Skoptsi, or self-muti- 
lators. They wear tlat blue caps, long 
blue coats, and fancy boots, — a gala cos- 
tume which accords but poorly with their 
faces of parchment, their lack-lustre eyes, 
their piping voices. Most of them do 
not know ten words of the Wallachian 
language, and they are guided entirely 
by gestures. A touch on their right arm 
sends them to the right ; on the left, to 
the left ; and a tap on the back brings 
them to a full stop. The spectacle of 
several hundreds of the carriages racing 
madly to and fro, filled with officers 
beating perpetual tattoo on the backs, 
aims, and ribs of the blue-coated autom- 
atons, as on the occasion of the arri- 
val of the Czar of Russia in Bucharest, 
was at once ludicrous and inspiring. 

I fancy there is no other avenue in 
Europe where one may see as many curi- 



721 EUROPE IN STORM AND r.\LM. 

(His and striking figures as on the Podan my friend took good aim and shotone of 

Mogosoi. There are prosperous farmers the brigands dead ; the other ran away, 

in Roumania, although the villages are The gentleman drove on to the next 

squalid and semi-barbarous, and these town, and narrated the occurrence to 

people take solid satisfaction in coming the local authorities. " Hum 1" said the 

to Bucharest once or twice a year. All police agent ; " we'll send some one out 

summer long, and at all hours of the to find out who it was, and to bury him, 

day, the promenader may meet the tiller in a day or two." 

of the soil, his wife, and their pretty The stout and awkward Wallachian 
brown-eyed daughter in procession visit- soldier is a familiar figure on the 
iiiij; the shops on the Mogosoi. The Mogosoi'. lie is not handsome, and the 
father wears a linen suit, ornamented national cap, to which lie so fondly 
with red or blue ; the trousers are so wide clings, does not palliate his naturally 
that they seem like meal-bags ; the uncouth appearance. lint lie is good- 
jacket is also ample, and the bold rustic natured, earnest, and there never was a 
displays the massive square of his more viler slander than that which denounced 
or less hemic breast, which is burned to him as cowardly. He demonstrated his 
a deep red by the generous sun. His valor in front of Plevna again and 
head is crowned with a broad black hat, again. His uniform is extremely simple, 
almost as ugly as that of a Spanish priest ; and he cannot be persuaded to wear it 
sometimes he is barefooted, and some- trimly and neatly. He looks supremely 
times he wears coarse shoes. The unhappy when compelled to maintain a 
women's costumes are at once simple and stiff military aspect, as when on guard 
picturesque; their jackets and skirts are at the prince's palace or one of the 
made of coarse stuffs, tastefully orua- ministries. He loves to crouch down 
men ted ; and a scarf protects the head on the sunny side of a wall and smoke a 
and face from the blinding light. In the cigarette and listen to a good story, 
sprinu and autumn rainy seasons, when But if he sees the priest coming he will 
the Roumanian village streets are turned instantly rise to his feet, doff his homely 
into mud-beds, the women wear tall cap, bend his knees, and kiss the priestly 
boots, which disfigure them and render hand which is held forth in token of 
their gait exceedingly awkward. The favor. 

farmer is armed usually, but only with a There are numerous smartly uniformed 

little knife, which would serve in case special corps in the Roumanian capital, 

some vagabond attacked him. Crime is The lifeguards of the prince are mighty 

not frequent in Roumania ; cases of as- fellows, six feet two or three inches tall, 

sassination are almost unheard of in the and arrayed as gorgeously as the carabin- 

large towns, and in the wild and remote eers in Offenbach's opera. There is a 

districts brigandage yearly becomes less body dressed somewhat in imitation of 

andless troublesome. The brigand, when Italian bersaglieri, and a detachment of 

he is caught, gets short shrift. A friend these bright little fellows in jaunty 

of mine was travelling ten years since in dress marches through the principal 

a thinly settled section of the province, streets at noontide to the sound of in- 

and was attacked in a wooded place by spiring music, carrying the garrison 

two rascals, who shot at him and his ser- flag when they go to relieve guard. A 

vant. As they approached the wagon peculiarity which puzzled me was the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



725 



constant playing by the military bands 
of our old war tunes, such as : " Tramp, 
tramp, tramp," ''John Brown," "Mother, 
I've come home to die," etc. At tirst it 
occurred to me that an American band- 
master might be among the musicians ; 
but I could not discover one. Perhaps 
the Roumanians have found that the 
simple melodies of which our soldiers 
were so fond have also a special fitness 
for their own military purposes. It is 
certain that they have adopted them in 
large numbers. 

The policemen, the officers of crack 
corps, the prefects and sub-prefects, 
and, in short, most of the uniformed 
officials, follow French models with the 
greatest closeness. Enter a cafe or a 
chocolate-vender's on the Mogosoi' on a 
summer evening, and one may persuade 
himself that he is in Paris, — all the more 
readily as it is probable that nine out of 
ten persons will be speaking the Gallic 
tongue. If some representative of the 
court happens in, every one will fall 
back into Roumanian, or possibly some 
few will indulge in German. The officers 
are elegant, dashing fellows, and bestow 
quite as much attention on their toilets 
as is allowable for man. The plain, 
sturdy Russians looked at them with 
some contempt when they first came 
among them, on account of their affecta- 
tion ; but when they discovered that the 
handsome boys could fight as well as 
tvviil their mustaches they were de- 
lighted. 

A sorrowful spectacle on the Mogosoi 
now and then is a conscripted peasant 
in the clutch of the military authorities. 
The poor wretch hurries angrily along, 
his brow clouded, often his eyes filled 
with tears, while behind him walks a 
gendarme with drawn sword, ready to 
cut him down if he attempts to escape. 
The peasants of Roumania suffer nearly 



as much from homesickness as do the 
Turks, and when the conscription drags 
them from their beloved villages they 
are half ready to commit suicide. The 
glare and glitter of the "Paris of the 
East" does not compensate them for the 
change from farm to garrison. They 
sigh for the tall fields of rustling corn, 
the hot breezes which now and then blow 
from the south across the vast plains, 
the water-buffaloes, and the huts in 
whose thatch the stork trustingly nestles. 
Since Roumania has won her inde- 
pendence her army has become of greater 
importance than ever before, and offers 
a good career to many enterprising men. 
But it is unfortunate that so small a 
state is compelled to maintain a com- 
paratively large standing army. If the 
forty or fifty thousand men Roumania 
now requires as soldiers and officers 
were engaged in manufactures, or in 
developing the marvellous mineral and 
agricultural resources of one of the 
richest of provinces, the country would 
soon take important rank in Europe. 
At present ever}' Roumanian is com- 
pelled to serve either in the permanent 
army or in the militia. This latter 
organization always amounts to about a 
hundred thousand men, thirty-two regi- 
ments of which are known as the 
dorobansi, who take the place of the old 
frontier guardsmen ; twelve regiments as 
calarasi, or departmental gendarmerie, 
and fourteen batteries of artillery, which 
oddly enough perform in peace the duties 
of firemen. These are garrisoned in the 
principal towns. The Roumanians real- 
ize to the fullest extent that the Hun- 
garians are their implacable enemies, and 
that part of their frontier which touches 
Hungary is most efficiently guarded. 
The five millions of Roumanian folk in 
the kingdom know also that there are 
three or four millions more of the same 



726 



EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 



blood scattered about in Hungary, Tran- 
sylvania, and the Bukovina, and it may 
be with some idea of bringing their wan- 
dering brethren under the old flag at a 
future day that they keep their army up, 
spending even in ordinary years, as they 
did in 1884-5, twenty-one millions of 
francs upon it, and only about a third as 
much on agriculture, commerce, and pub- 
lic works. As for the Roumanian navy, 
it is easy- enough to support, for it boasts 
only one large war-ship, the " Mirzea," 
finished in 1883, besides three gun-boats, 
three torpedo boats, and a number of 
police sloops for the Danube, and musters 
scarcely a thousand men. 

The stranger on the Mogosoi is puz- 
zled in noticing that some police agents 
and postmen wear red stripes upon their 
uniforms, while others are striped with 
black, others with green, and still others 
with yellow and blue. The fact is that 
Bucharest is divided into five large wards, 
which are distinguished from each other 
by the names of colors. The northern 
seetion. in which the aristocracy reside, 
has yellow for its hue, and this color 
will be found on the letter-boxes, lamp- 
posts, the collars of uniforms, etc. 
Red is the commercial and plebeian dye ; 
green means west; black, east, and 
blue, south. A strongly marked local 
pride is visible among the inhabitants 
of each of these quarters ; and the 
lucky result is that there is no section 
of Bucharest which does not boast at 
least one or two fine edifices, public or 
private. 

Priests are plenty on the Mogosoi, — 
priests large and small, fat and lean, 
old and young. They are not always 
cleanly, I regret to say, and when their 
tall lirimless hats and long black robes 
are stained and dusty they are not in- 
teresting figures. But now and then one 
is to be seen who seems the incarnate 



ideal of the priesthood. He has the sad, 
sweet face, with the low brow crowned 
with flowing locks parted in the middle, 
such as we have sceu in the works of the 
old Byzantine artists. An expression of 
tender and subdued melancholy hovers 
about the thin lips, and a chastened spirit 
beams from the frank and widely opened 
eyes. A fine inspiration seems to hover 
about the man, warding off the grossness 
of the lower nature and urging him on 
to lofty and noble deeds. His step is 
slow and plantigrade ; his gestures are 
impressive ; his benedictions imposing. 
I have not wondered when I have seen 
peasants kneeling in a kind of adoration 
before such a man as he blessed their 
bread, their houses, or their babies. 
The Cossack, as he rode through the 
streets of Bucharest on his way to Bul- 
garia, bent from his saddle to kiss the 
hand of the priest, and crossed himself 
religiously when passing the decorated 
portico of some one of the many wooden 
churches. One fat and rather disagree- 
able-looking old priest, who was evi- 
dently a dignitary of high order, 
promenaded the Mogo?oi' every day of 
my stay in Bucharest. At his approach 
women began to crouch, men to drop 
their cigars or to hide them, and to 
shuffle their rosaries, and children stood 
pale and mute before him. Form is 
everything in Roumania, and the exterior 
formulas of religion are scrupulously 
observe*! by all classes born in the faith 
of the Orthodox Greek church. I have 
often met a slow and solemn procession 
of priests bearing the sacrament to the 
dying. The principal offlciator marched 
proudly ahead with swelling f rout ; he- 
hind him followed meek curis and 
acolytes with eyes bent on the ground. 
Companies of chanting priests were 
always meeting the Russians at impor- 
tant points both iu Bulgaria and Rouma- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



727 



nia in 1877, holding up the sacred 
images for them to kiss, and offering 
them bread and salt in token of welcome. 
Some of these ceremonies were notably 
impressive. Emperor and grand dukes 
bowed before the uplifted hand of the 
rustic man of God, and the Emperor's 
first act on arriving at Bucharest was to 
kiss the golden crucifix which the metro- 
politan archbishop held out to him. 

The Roumanian church is free from 
any foreign dominion whatsoever. The 
principality is divided into eight dioceses, 
of whicli two are archbishoprics, having 
their seats at Bucharest and Jassy, and 
six are bishoprics. The Archbishop of 
Bucharest is the chief, and is known by 
the high-sounding title of " the Metro- 
politan of Ilungro-Wallachia." The 
clergy is divided into " secular" and 
" regular," each class comprising from 
nine to ten thousand men. All other 
religions besides those of the established 
church are as free as in America. Even 
the persecuted Jew is not troubled on 
account of his religion, and may have 
his choice of thirty synagogues and 
oratories in Bucharest to worship in. I 
fear that the Roumanian men are at 
heart as little devoted to Greek as 
Frenchmen are to Roman Catholicism. 
In both countries it is the women who 
maintain the Church. The sumptuous 
ceremonials of the Greek religion have a 
powerful hold on the imaginative, ro- 
mantic, sensuous Wallachian women. 

It is but a short distance from the 
Podan Mogosoi, along a beautiful tree- 
bordered avenue, to the hill on which 
stands the Metropolitan Church of Bu- 
charest. From the plain it looks more 
like a fortress than a house of God, for 
three stout towers surmount the huge 
structure, built in the form of a cross, 
like most Greek churches, with the 
head turned towards the east, and 



surrounded by a vast cloister studded 
with small towers. The domes and the 
roof of the basilica are covered with 
lead. The church was restored in 1834, 
but it is probable that the leaden roofs 
are much the same as those of which 
the Patriarch of Antioch speaks in his 
account of Bucharest, written about the 
middle of the seventeenth century. 
Macarius reported that this roof weighed 
more than a hundred thousand pounds. 
Inside the edifice is ornamented with 
much luxury and taste. The arabesques 
especially remind one that he is in 
South-eastern Europe. The frescos on 
the exterior walls are mostly crude, and 
in some cases worse than ordinary. 
They represent episodes from the 
Apocalypse and from the Scriptures 
in general. All Roumanian churches 
have something of this exterior decora- 
tion, and one or two of the churches 
are brilliant in color. If a Puritan 
could see them in the midst of their 
pretty gardens he would cry out against 
them as too gay for houses of prayer. 
In the same cloister which surrounds 
the Metropolitan Church the National 
Chamber of Deputies is installed. 
Looking down in midsummer from the 
entrance to this legislative hall over the 
city, one can see nothing but a far-ex- 
tending ocean of verdure, pierced here 
and there by a yellow tower or a white 
dome. Bucharest seems asleep among 
the trees. 

St. Spiridion the New. not far from 
the Metropolitan, is the most beautiful 
as well as the most costly church in 
Roumania, always excepting the match- 
less Cathedral of Argesu. It is scarcely a 
generation old, and nearly all the marbles 
and frescos in it are the work of young 
Roumanian artists. The standards and 
sceptres of the Fanariote beys, who for- 
merly came to the church which once 



72.S 



EUROPE IN 'STORM AND CALM. 



stood on this site to be crowned, are 
preserved in St. Spiridion the New. 
With St. Spiridion the Old, which stands 
in the commercial quarter of Bucharest, 
a strange story is connected. The body 
of the voi'voda Constantine Hangerli, 
who was beheaded by order of the Porte, 
in 1799, lies buried there. The man- 
ner in which this unfortunate official 
met his death admirably illustrates the 
barbarous conduct of the Turks in 
their subject Danubian provinces. The 
government at Constantinople was 
dissatisfied with the administration of 
Constantine, whom it had placed in power 
in Bucharest, and determined to replace 
him. This is the way in which it was 
done: ( )ne day a Turkish official, ac- 
companied by a hideous negro and two 
slaves, arrived in Bucharest, and went 
straight to the palace. Without ex- 
plaining their mission they entered 
Constanttne's apartment, and the negro 
killed him with a pistol-shot. The 
Turkish official then plunged bis knife 
into the dead man's breast, cut oft his 
head, and threw the body, stripped 
naked, into the court-yard covered with 
snow. This interesting party then re- 
tired, carrying off the slaughtered voi- 
voda's head, and in course of time 
tin' Porte named a successor to Constan- 
tine. The Roumanian population was 
so horrified by this barbaric act that it 

was some days before any one dared to 
remove the body. And this happened 
little more than three-quarters of a cen- 
tury ago ! 

The memory of another Constantine, 
who was also beheaded by his ferocious 
masters, the Turks, after he had been 
hospodar of Roumania for a short time, 
is recalled by the Church of Caltzea, 
which is one of the interesting edifices 
of Bucharest. This church is said to 
have been constructed by the Swedish 



soldiers who took refuge in Roumania 
after their disaster. Charles XII., 
when he was transferred from Bender to 
Demotica, in 171.*!, passed a night at 
Caltzea, which was then just finished. 
The hospodar, Constantine Brancovano, 
went to meet the great man at the gates 
of the city, and in the course of compli- 
mentary conversation observed, " We 
have heard that Your Majesty has slain 
as many as twenty Janissaries with your 
own hand." " Ah ! " said Charles, mod- 
estly, "you know people always exag- 
gerate by at least one-half." 

On the MogosoT stands the Sarindav, 
a church in which is carefully enshrined 
a so-called miraculous image of the 
Blessed Virgin. Matthew Bassaraba, a 
[lions prince, built the church in 1634, 
and Roumanian annals record him as 
instrumental in the building of thirty- 
nine other sacred edifices. When the 
prince or any other great, personage 
falls seriously ill the sacred image is 
taken from the Sarindav and borne to the 
houseof the sufferer by priests, who ride 
in a gala carriage, before which lighted 
candles are borne. The people in the 
streets kneel, or make profound obeisan- 
ces, as the image passes. If the sufferer 
is a person in ordinary circumstances a 
monk in a hired carriage bears to him a 
small image which is a copy of the more 
wonderful one. 

Of the ninety-six Orthodox churches 
of Bucharest about one-half are his- 
torically interesting. Each has its 
legend, its ballad, or its curious inci- 
dent, which the parishioners are never 
tired of repeating to strangers. Most 
of the intelligent inhabitants are familiar 
with the story of the origin of the 
monastery church of Mihail Yoda, pict- 
uresquely situated on one of the few 
eminences in Bucharest. " Vlad the 
Devil," a great ruler and fighter in the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



729 



Wallachian days, is believed to have 
founded this chinch in 1456. This Vlad 
was a wild fellow, and perhaps desired 
to ease his conscience by establishing 
churches. His career was tilled with 
deeds of the most diabolical ferocity, 
and it is said that he once caused 
twenty-five thousand Turkish prisoners 
to be impaled. 'The old church is now 
rapidly crumbling to decay. 

The barefooted and often bareheaded 
newsboy, rushing wildly along beneath 
the awnings in the heated streets and 
thrusting sheets damp from the press 



under the noses of the pedestrians re- 
minds the American of home, and that 
the press is absolutely free in Roumania. 
Even thing and everybody receive ample 
criticism, and at all hours of the day 
one hears the boys crying "Presa!" 
" Romanul! " li Somania Libera! " and 
a dozen other journals more or less 
important. Bucharest has a large read- 
ing population, but nine out of ten of 
the village folk can neither read nor 
write, and look upon a newspaper as the 
most utterly superfluous of things. 



730 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER ETGHTY-THREE. 



Tlic Garden of Herestreu. — Gypsy Music. — Roumanian Amusements. — Prince Gortschakoff at P.uclia- 
rest. — General Ignaticff. — Roumanian Houses. — rioiesci. — A Funeral in Roumania. — A Bit of 
History. — A Liberal Constitution. — Kin^c Charles. — The Upgrowth of Literature. 



TIM*', gypsy's eyes are wonderfully 
brown and soft, and as he lavs 
aside his guzla, the musical instrument 

from which lie litis just evoked such pas- 
sionate sounds, and approaches us, ex- 
tending his lean hand and shrugging his 
shoulders with deprecatory air, it is hard 
to send him away with an angry word. 
A few bafii content him, and he returns 
to the shade of a friendly tree, and, with 
his companions, sings a round of deli- 
cious melodies, each and all filled with 
wild and plaintive chords, with tender 
melancholy, and a rude eloquence almost 
surprising. 

We are seated in the garden of He- 
restreu, outside the city of Bucharest. 
Herestreu is an oasis crowded with de- 
lights in the middle of a comparatively 
uninteresting plain. When the rich 
southern moonlight showers its glory 
on the green sward and among the odor- 
ous vines and flowers the beauty and 
fashion of the Roumanian capital seek 
respite from the toils of the parlor and 
the ball-room in this charming spot. 
For half a mile round about, pretty vil- 
las suiTOundcd by well-kept gardens 
arc scattered at rare intervals ; but with 
this exception, the stretch of laud is 
barren and uninviting. At a place 
where four roads meet, a long, one-story 
inn, with grotesque figures painted on 
ita stable-door, rears its abject front. 
In the yard of this caravansary a few 
slatternly girls arc romping, and one or 
two peasants sit moodily drinking sour 



Wallachian beer. A few semi-civilized 
tillers of the soil are galloping home- 
ward 01. their merry little horses, whoso 
breakneck pace seems likely to bring 
misfortune to the unsteady riders. Wine 
has flowed in rivulets in the shops in the 
shabby streets just outside the town, for 
it is a " market-day." At Baniassa, 
once a favorite suburban resort for Bu- 
charest's fashionable folk, a few thou- 
sand sturdy Russians are encamped, and 
a hum arising from their tented city is 
borne on the evening breeze to listeners 
a mile away. 

Within this magic close of Herestreu 
on" forgets everything hut the entranc- 
ing melody of the dark-skinned vaga- 
bond choir squatted under the trees. 
Who would have suspected that beneath 
these scowling brows, these uneasy eyes, 
these foreheads crowned with masses 
of inky hair, lay such power of poetic 
expression ? The men are marvels : 
when they sing they seem inspired ; 
their faces are transfigured ; their hands 
tremble; their lips quiver with excite- 
ment. On the throbbing current of their 
sensuous song one is borne into a region 
of enchantment. One hears the musical 
flow of the great Danube past the mighty 
crags and through the vast valleys where 
Trajan once camped and fought and 
worked ; one sees the misty blue of the 
hills over which the Hungarian hunter 
tramps merrily at sunrise to the refrain 
of the horn ; one seats oneself in nooks 
where the purple grape-clusters move 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



731 



heavily to and fro above him ; one 
stands by the foot of some moss-grown 
cross in an ancient village and watches 
youths and maidens treading the curious 
mazes of the Hora Tanz. So subtle 
is the spell that one who is under its 
influence feels a contempt for the tame 
sensations of more thoroughly civilized 
Western Europe. The mystery, the 
voluptuousness, the dreaminess of the 
Orient seize ou him and claim him for 
their own. 

Presently the music dies away ; the 
clear, piercing tones of the youngest of 
the singers stop shortly 311st as they are 
taking a flight in mid-air. The calm 
after this melody is almost startling. 
Twilight is coming rapidly. I sit and 
muse for an hour ; the charm holds long 
and well. At last I look up and sec the 
gypsy musicians stretched upon their 
backs, with their dusky faces turned 
toward the veiled sky. They are fast 
asleep, and unless the proprietor turns 
them out of the garden they will remain 
so until morning. They seem to have 
exhaled all their strength in their song. 
When they wake they will wander to the 
nearest stream, throw aside their ex- 
tremely scanty garments, and plunge and 
lie in uncouth positions in the muddy 
flood, as their friend the water-buffalo 
does. After this simple toilet they will 
tramp before the sun is hot, breakfast on 
a crust and a fragment of old cheese, 
and sing again wherever they are per- 
mitted so to do. 

The Roumanian common folk have no 
very definite ideas of amusement and 
recreation as compared with those of va- 
rious other nations. There is a certain 
amount of grace and a rude rhythm in 
the Hora, — the dance which the peas- 
ants indulge in at night in rustic caba- 
rets, or on festal days in the towns, — 
but there is not much merriment in it. The 



men and women both act as if they were 
not sorry when the dance is over and 
they can relapse into their normal condi- 
tion of siouchiness. Sometimes one 
chances upon a downright merry com- 
pany; but it is the exception. I went 
one afternoon to a fair in the outskirts 
of Bucharest, having been informed that 
it would be a gay spectacle and could 
only be seen once a year. After infi- 




ROUMANIAN TYPES. 

nite difficulties in finding the place indi- 
cated, all that I discovered was a series 
of wooden booths, in which languid and 
sallow women, none of whom were emi- 
nent for beauty or smartness of attire, 
were selling cloths, printed handkerchiefs, 
carpets woven by the industrious wives 
of villagers near the capital, and articles 
of fantasy imported from the Palais 
Royal, in Paris. There were few buyers, 
and the sellers appeared more anxious to 
forget the dull September heat in sleep 
than to dispose of their wares. I fancied 



732 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

that the war and its sorrows (for the famous, when an indiscreet fellow-coun- 
Roumanians had then just crossed tlie tryman or a pushing diplomat took 
Danube to join the Russians in the siege advantage of his apparent good-nature 
of Plevna) had deadened the customary to he rather daring. Prince Gortscha- 
gayctv ; but friends in Bucharest assured koff showed his age. Me walked rather 
me that --it was as lively as usual." feebly, and generally appeared on the 
The terrible extremes of the Roumanian street at Bucharest supported on the 
climate keep the people from that dis- arm of some one who was young and 
play of vivacity which one expects of the strong. His temper was cheerful in a 
southern temperament. They bake in surprising degree ; nothing seemed to as- 
summer, and they freeze in winter, tonish him. The series of alarming 
They love music, and through all the rumors which came to him from beyond 
pleasant months they crowd the gardens, the Danube, after General Gourko's re- 
wherc regimental bands play, and singers turn from his impetuous raid across the 
retail the latest fragments of opera Balkans, were 1 enough to try the nerves 
bouffe. •• Itasca's " and the " Swiss of fresher and more vigorous men than 
Union" — little parks laid out in the the aged premier; but his cheerfulness 
Austrian fashion, with restaurants and was always remarked just at moments 
beer-fountains attached — possess open- which seemed gloomiest to other friends 
air theatres. That year the various of the Russian cause. In his relations 
entertainments for the purpose of gain- with the Roumanian authorities — rela- 
ing funds for the hospitals brought all tions naturally of extreme delicacy, 
Bucharest to " Rasca's." because anything like pressure on the 
The pretty Princess Elizabeth, with officials of the tiny State was far from 
the ladies of her court and hundreds of his thoughts, and firmness might at any 
exquisitely beautiful young girls, — beau- moment be construed by the susceptible 
tiful. alas! only to fade ere their worn- people into arbitrary demand, — he gave 
anhood has begun, — wandered in the proof of a gentle consideration which 
shady aisles with scores of brilliantly made him both respected and loved. It 
uniformed Russian dukes, princes, and is to be feared that General Ignatieff did 
barons. All the dignitaries of Bucha- not give the Roumanians the same treat- 
rest, from the minister of foreign affairs incut. If the rumors be true he was 
to the prefect of police, were to be seen not mealy-mouthed when he arrived 
in an evening's promenade. The music in Bucharest to ask for the recession of 
on such occasions was exceptionally Bessarabia to Russia, and hinted that 
good ; the acting and singing execrable, they would be wiser to give it in cx- 
— a legacy of histrionic horrors, from the change for something else than to see it 
slums of Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow, taken violently from them. There is no 
and Odessa, having been forced upon the denying the fact that the Roumanians 
unfortunate citizens of Bucharest. Yen- were from time to time rather preten- 
erable Prince Gortschakoff did not hesi- tions in their relations to the Russians; 
tate to exhibit himself in this garden and that some of their requests were de- 
from time to time, to laugh with the nied simply because it would have beeu 
brightest of the maidens, and to utter impossible to grant them. Atone time 
those singularly non-committal answers it seemed as if they delighted to place 
to "hailing questions " for which he is obstacles in the way of the Russians; 



EUROT'E IX STORM AXD CALM. 



733 



but tlicy soon began to work in unison 
with their Northern friends when they 
learned that nothing less than the demoli- 
tion of the Turkish power in Europe was 
contemplated. 

A Roumanian house is a perfect laby- 
rinth of stair-ways, small and large, 
lighted and uulighted ; of balconies over- 
hanging other houses ; and of long pas- 
sages open at both ends. At night the 
servants, men and women, sleep on the 
floor on these balconies and in the cor- 
ridors, and the traveller entering after 
midnight for the first time one of the 
populous mansions of Bucharest might 
readily fancy that the way to his 
bedroom was strewn with corpses. He 
would have to step over the cook, who, 
with a single blanket thrown about her 
portly form, would perhaps be dream- 
ing and imn muring a voluble Wallachian 
prayer ; to steer cautiously around the 
maid-of-all-work, on whose olive-colored 
face, framed in a night of untidy locks, 
the moon might be casting its dangerous 
beams ; and, escaping this Seylla, he 
would confn nt the Charybdis of the 
serving-man, who wears a long knife in 
his belt, and whose temper is bad when 
he awakes in a fright. Awaking before 
dawn one morning at Ploiesci, I heard a 
strange rustling sound on my balcony, 
and, peering from the bedroom window, 
saw the whole landing loaded witli the 
ungainly forms of wagoners, who had 
come in during the night, and who slept, 
shrouded in their sheepskin mantles, as 
if they reposed upon couches of "roses 
besprinkled with dew." Others, who 
had found the balcony occupied, were 
snoring comfortably on heaps of soiled 
straw in the very centre of the barn-yard, 
as the dirty enclosure known as the 
"court "of the hotel would have been 
called in America, and were not likely 
to waken until the fowls hopped over 



them and the inquisitive pig of the 
locality rooted them out. But this was 
no more remarkable than the strange 
nest in which a whole Bulgarian family, 
1 1 1 v hosts in Tirnova, slept nightly. It 
was a species of little fortress, con- 
structed of carpets, cushions, and the 
garments of the father, mother, statu- 
esque daughter, and " small brother," 
who were all ensconced there ; and it 
was in the entrance-way, so that no one 
could go out at early morning without 
stepping over, and sometimes unwarily 
upon, the unconscious sleepers. 

A mystery, which must forever remain 
unexplained, is the magical manner in 
which the man-servant, who is usually 
dressed in white tunic and trousers, and 
who in the day appears clean and well 
clothed, manages to keep up appear- 
ances after sleeping and grovelling every 
night in these same garments on the 
dusty floor. It is wonderful, too. that 
one does not hear them complain of 
colds, of rheumatism, or of fever. In 
winter they inutile themselves in sheep- 
skin or in thick blankets made in the 
mountain hamlets and sold for a trifle. 

There are numerous evidences of for- 
mer Turkish domination to be seen in 
Bucharest, — perhaps none more striking 
than the servile submission of the masses 
to any small authority, whether it be 
employed in an offensively arbitrary 
manner or within decent limits. The 
people, although living under a consti- 
tution wonderfully liberal for Europe, 
still show that they have once been sub- 
jected to the rule of a country whose 
only law is the sword. I was amazed, 
on the occasion of the arrival of Czar 
Alexander in Bucharest, to see the gen- 
darmes of the city driving peasants out 
of the way of the procession with good, 
stinging blows from their whips or with 
their hands. The fellows thus roughly 



734 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



treated merely shrank away, looking re- 
proachfully fit their tormentors. 

Turkish architecture peeps out from 
street-corners in the Roumanian capital. 
The peddlers of fruit and vegetables cany 
their wares suspended from the long, 
ungainly, and inconvenient yoke which 
one sees everywhere in Turkey ; and 
some of the most palatable of Mussulman 
dishes hold their place still against the 
innovations of French and Austrian 
cookery. Probably Romania Libera, 
as her citizens now like to call the liber- 
ated State, will endeavor hereafter to 
dispense with everything which reminds 
it of Ottoman rule and Osmanli tyranny. 
I do not think that the Roumanians of 
the present generation fec-l any of that 
intense hatred of the Turk felt by the 
Servians, but they fully recognize his 
unfitness for contact with modern civil- 
ization, and are glad that he is to be 
banished from the countries which he 
refuses to improve. 

A funeral in Ron mania is somewhat 
startling to him who sees it for the first 
time. The dead are borne through the 
streets, lying uneoffined, in a hearse 
whose glass sides permit every one to 

see the last, of ] r mortality. If it be 

a man he is dressed in his finest clothes ; 
if a woman — and especially if a young 
one — she is robed in white, and gar- 
hinds of flowers, natural and artificial, 
crown her tresses or repose upon her 
bosom. Priests bearing the sacred 
emblems and clad in robes such as they 
wear when officiating at the altar pre- 
cede the mourning friends, man)' of 
whom follow on foot. There is some- 
thing ghastly and revolting in this 
spectacle of the dead carried thus 
through the crowded streets. Wher- 
ever a procession passes all vehicles 
not connected with it stop, and the 
drivers reverently cross themselves. 



Slow and solemn dirges are sometimes 
the accompaniment of these funeral 
parties, bands or portions of bands 
according their services. There is a 
wonderful wealth of affection in the im- 
pulsive Roumanian character, — an in- 
tense love forborne, family, and friends; 
and grief in affliction is violent, un- 
reasoning, often alarmingly despairing. 

A mighty cry of anguish went up 
from the stricken little country when at 
least a fourth of the brave army of 
Roumania was slaughtered in front 
of Plevna, and for a time it seemed as 
if the stay-at-home relatives would fairly 
revolt unless the government ordered 
the survivors to return across the Dan- 
ube and risk themselves no more. But 
this unreasonable freak of temper was 
fortunately of short duration. 

Roumania's history has been stormy 
and full of striking incidents. The 
country which is properly Roumania 
to-day was the home of the ancient 
Dacians, who were of Thraeian origin, 
and bore a marked resemblance to the 
Gauls. Trajan came with his terrible 
legions, and the Dacians succumbed, 
and were swept like chaff before the 
valorous Romans, who were flushed with 
victory and a thirst for new conquests. 
The Dacians had peopled the sections 
now known as Moldavia, Wallachia, 
the Banat, Transylvania, the Bukovina 
and Bessarabia ; and as they disap- 
peared their places were taken by the 
colonists whom Trajan summoned from 
Italy ami Spain. These colonists were 
the ancestors of the people who have 
finally become the Roumanian race. 
For a century or two the new province 
enjoyed such prosperity that the chroni- 
clers of the time speak of it as Dacia 
Felix. Then came the invading Goth, 
who drove out or frightened into re- 
moval large numbers of the colonists. 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



735 



But the majority of tlicm remained, liv- 
ing among the Goths, but not mingling 
with them, until still other invaders 
came and dispersed both Goth and 
Daco-Roman. The latter took to the 
mountain regions, and in the great re- 
cesses of the Carpathians nourished into 
vigor a national life which was des- 
tined to have numerous reverses, but to 
support them all with hardihood. Tow- 
ards the latter half of the thirteenth 
century the real Roumanians, who had 
of course taken something of the Dacian 
character from intermarriage, came down 
to the plains and begau to assert them- 
selves. Under the command of two 
chiefs, Rodolph the Black and Dragoch, 
they established the principalities of 
"Wallachia and Moldavia. This, by 
Roumanian historians, is always spoken 
of as " the descent," and is their start- 
ing-point. Wallachia was doomed to 
possess an independent existence but a 
short time : in 1393 the Turk came in, 
and the principality placed itself under 
the "protection" of the Torte. The 
Ottomans gradually strengthened their 
influence until it became tyrannical rule, 
but not before there had been many 
splendid revolts. In those wild days 
uprose " Mad the Devil," he who 
scourged the Turks and at one time im- 
paled twenty-live thousand Turkish pris- 
oners. 

In 1511 Moldavia capitulated to the 
Turks. Her people had been able to 
resist for a much longer time than the 
Wallachians because of their mountain 
fastnesses ; but the fatal day came for 
them also. The history of the two sis- 
ter principalities for the next three 
centuries and a half may be divided into 
three periods — the first that during 
which, although under Ottoman suze- 
rainty, they were governed by native 
princes; the second the " Fanariote 



epoch," from 171G to 1S22, in which 
they were goverened by foreign rulers 
named aud maintained iu power by the 
Porte ; and the third and present that 
which is sometimes called the " Rou- 
manian Renaissance," denoted by the re- 
turn to native rule, by the recognition 
of the rights of the country by the great 
European powers, and at last by the 
declaration of independence of 1877. 
It is noteworthy that all the countries 
originally peopled by the colonist ances- 
tors of the Roumanians now have in 
them large numbers of people speaking 
the Roumanian tongue ; aud if King 
Charles could get a slice of Hungary, a 
good bit of Austria, and could have kept 
the Bessarabia deeded to Roumania at 
the time of the humiliation of Russia by 
the powers, but which she was compelled 
to give back as the price of her liberties 
to the great Northern power, lie would 
find himself ruling over more than ten 
millions of subjects. 

It is odd that these Danubian folk, 
who have borrowed so much from the 
French, did not think it worth while, by 
some clause in their constitution, to 
trammel the press and the spoken word. 
They did not, and the result is that 
King Charles knows exactly what the 
people think of him whenever he under- 
takes a measure likely to be unpopular. 
No editor or speaker feels called upon 
to mince his phrases in discussing the 
inmates of the palace, the ministers, the 
judges, or the general. There is a 
'•Red" party in the country, an 1 it has 
its say as often as it chooses, and some- 
times has power in its hands. King 
Charles came to the throne at the 
close of a very excited and dangerous 
period in Roumanian affairs. Naturally 
enough there had been a revolution at 
Bucharest in IS is, when the great demo- 
cratic wind swept over Europe and 



73G 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



stirred even the binds on the far-stretch- 
ing plains by the Danube to a sense of 
their political degradation. A liberal 
constitution was proclaimed, and the 
national party daily grew strong and 
courageous. But. the Turks were not 
inclined to see their rule shaken off, and 
they pushed Omar Pacha with a large 
army to the banks of the Danube, de- 
posed the rulers who bad succeeded to 
the short-lived "provisional govern- 
ment" of revolution, and presently 
occupied the two principalities con- 
jointly with the Russians. After the 
various foreign occupations of the 
troublous times preceding, during, and 
at the close of the Crimean war, Ron- 
mania had the satisfaction of seeing its 
historic rights recognized, and of finding 
its privileges placed under the collective 1 
guarantee of the great powers. In 
1.SG1 the temporary union of Moldavia 
and Wallachia was proclaimed at Bu- 
charest. Three years later there was a 
coup (VKlat. The reigning prince dis- 
solved the National Assembly and sub- 
mitted a new project of law to the 
people. This prince was a Colonel 
Couza, who was elected in 1859. He 
abdicated in 1866, after what may be 
fairly considered a successful reign, and 
in April of that year Prince Charles 
came in, with the shadow of the already 
menacing power of Germany behind 
him. He was no sooner firmly seated 
on the throne than the present constitu- 
tion was proclaimed, and the union of 
Wallachia and Moldavia was confirmed, 
recognized, and guaranteed by Europe. 
Roumania was thus created ; it re- 
mained for her only to emancipate her- 
self from the hateful suzerainty of the 
Porte, to which greedy government she 
was compelled to pay a million francs 
of tribute money yearly. Austria, 
France. Great Britain, Italy, Prussia, 



Turkey, and Russia were the nations 
recognizing and welcoming Roumania to 
the world's family. 

In a previous chapter I have spoken 
of the national representation. The 
election of senators by two colleges 
composed exclusively of persons having 
large fortunes is perhaps open to 
criticism; and it might have been as 
well to have given universal suffrage in 
its unadulterated form to the whole 
people, instead of compelling those who 
only pay small taxes to be content with 
inferior facilities for expressing their 
choice. The King is of course invio- 
late ; the eight ministers are responsible 
to the country ; and, judging from the 
very free criticisms which I heard made 
upon their most innocent actions, each 
of them earns his salary, which is twelve 
thousand francs (twenty-four hundred 
dollars) yearly. All Roumania is di- 
vided into thirty-three judicial districts, 
presided over by prefects, and these 
districts are subdivided into one hun- 
dred and sixty-four wards, which in turn 
are partitioned into two thousand and 
eighty parishes. 

King Charles, a German of the best 
type, — brave, cultured, and sympa- 
thetic, — good-humoredly studied the 
Roumanian language, and finally be- 
came master of it. This flattered his 
new subjects, to whom he has attached 
himself in many other ways. In 1869 
he married the present queen, Eliza- 
beth, of German birth ; and she also 
had the talent to make herself beloved. 
She has adopted the national costume 
— which, by the way, is exceedingly 
beautiful — as her dress on state occa- 
sions, groups the beauty and fashion 
of the land around her, has given a 
healthy check to the absenteeism which 
was fast making a second Ireland of 
Roumania; and in the terrible days of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



737 



1877, when the army \v:is fighting the 
Turks, she worked unweariedly in the 
hospitals, inspiring all other ladies by 
her example. 

The palace in which King Charles 
resides in winter is a large mansion, 
almost wholly devoid of exterior orna- 
ment. 'When the Han Constantino 
Golescu was building it, at the begin- 
ning of this century, his father came 1<> 
examine it, and remarked, " My son, 
you are foolish to build such enormous 
rooms: yon can never light them." 
"Father," answered Constantine, who 
foresaw many other things besides the 
introduction of gas into Roumania, " I 
am building for the future." 

Goleseo was a noble patriot, and 
really hud the foundations of the " Rou- 
manian Renaissance." The national in- 
dependence was born and nourished in 
this sombre old palace. Cotroceni, the 
summer residence of royalty, was diht a 
monastery. It is more than two cen- 
turies old, and owes its origin to the 
following circumstances: Two powerful 
families, the Cantaeuzencs and the 
Ghikas, were at deadly enmity, and 
Cherban Cantacnzene, tracked by his 
enemies through the forests which in 
old days covered the hills around Bucha- 
rest, built a monastery on t lie spot where 
he had successfully hidden until a truce 
was declared. Although the old pile has 
been restored it is still in a dilapidated 
condition, and the King must have an 
easily contented mind to accept it as an 
agreeable summer home. He can, if he 
pleases, go and dream away the hottest 
of the merciless summer days in the 
lovely valley where stand the ruins of 
Tirgoviste, the ancient capital ofWalla- 
chia, deserted more than a hundred and 
fifty years ago for less picturesque and 
more unhealthy Bucharest. Tirgoviste 
is one of the loveliest spots on earth, and 



the wrecks of noble edifices scattered 
along the slopes and in the glens prove 
that there were oilier giant builders be- 
sides Manol the Unlucky in the elder 
days. In the ancient metropolitan 
church of Tirgoviste is the tomb of 
Bishop Stephen, the first man who 
printed books in the Rotimaniau lan- 
guage ; and there also are the tombs of 
the famous Cantacnzene family. The 
leaden roof of the church was melted up 
for bullets in 1821, and was replaced by 
one made of iron. King Charles can 
reach this old and moss-grown town by 
a railway ride of about fifty English 
miles from Bucharest to GaVcoci, and a 
six hour's journey thence along pretty 
country roads bordered with villages, 
on the roofs of whose houses the eternal 
stork clatters and stints. To-day Tir- 
goviste has only live thousand inhabi- 
tants ; but there are evidences that it was 
once very populous. No chronicler has 
given an exact account of its origin: 
tradition and history arc at odds on this 
point; but it seems certain that Mirzea 
the Elder, who is a mighty figure in the 
annals of Wallachia and who became the 
ruler of that province towards the close 
of the fourteenth century, transferred the 
seat cf government from Curtea Argcsu, 
where Manol and his companions had 
long before begun the great cathedral, to 
Tirgoviste. Mirzea was a notable war- 
rior, but he does not seem to have pre- 
vented an incursion of barbarians which 
nearly cost the new town its existence. 
In the sixteenth century Michael the 
Brave fought a terrible battle with the 
Turks on the plain near the town, and 
defeated the enemy. A century later a 
Roumanian prince massacred all Turks 
found in the neighborhood, and a year 
after this occurrence the Mussulmans 
committed such terrible reprisals that 
Tirgoviste was decimated. At the end 



738 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of the seventeenth century one of the 
Cantacuzenes constructed a superb 
castle near the town. It is now only a 
confused mass of ruined subterraneous 
passages, chaotic walls, and massive por- 
tals; but the shepherds in the valley 
point up to it, and with bated breath tell 
the stranger that i( is the castle of the 
ancient voivodas, and that it is haunted 
by the spirits of the departed. At Tir- 
goviste there are one or two important 
military establishments, and an arsenal 
lias been improvised in an old monastery 
said to have been founded by no leas a 



personage than Rodolphthe Black, chief 
of the Wallachians at the time of the 

famous •■ descent " from the mountains. 
Roumania boasts another ancient castle, 
" Campu Lungii," at the foot of the 
Carpathians on a plain traversed by the 
Dimbovitza river, on its winding way to 
Bucharest. Here once stood a noble 
cathedral several centuries old, but it 
was thrown down by an earthquake in 
1819, and has been replaced by one of 
the most ordinary productsof the modern 
architect's imagination. 



KUROri] IN STORM AND CALM. 



739 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR. 

The Early Roumanians. — The Language. — Greelc Plays. — Agriculture. — The "Minor Towns of 
Rouraania.- -Jassy. — On the Bessarabian Frontier. — Galatz. —National Manners. — Roumanian 
Monasteries. 



RESPECT for the genius of the early 
Roumanians increases at each step 
which one takes among the ruins of their 
castles and churches, monasteries ami 
fortresses. There is no builder of the 
race to-day who could accomplish any 
of the works that seem to have been 
done with case in the olden time The 
peasant puzzles his dull brain to con- 
struct a flimsy cottage with thatched 
roof and wattled sides, — a trap which 
would afford but small shelter in a more 
uncertain climate. Colossal men of 
great deeds were the lathers, but there 
is almost no record of them. No written 
account in Roumanian can !»• found with 
an earlier date than (lie last half of the 
seventeenth century- After that time 
there was a decadence of the small 
literary acquirements of the struggling 
nation. In (he first quarter of the 
present century the Roumanian could 
scarcely claim the dignity of a written 
language. Gradually men of talent awoke 
to the necessity of a great effort for a 
literary revival. The language to-day 
has not a. positively settled orthography : 
one journalist spells a disputed word i:i 
one mamier. while his rival insists upon 
another; thus much confusion arises 
and many comical blunders ensue. A 
newly made ll Academy " i ■ hard at work 
upon a grammar and a dictionary, and 
romances, poems, and historical works 
have been published, hut. are read by 
onhy a very few persons. In the old 
book-stalls in Bucharest I found editions 



of works by Roumanian authors printed 
in the Slavic language. It is worthy of 
remark that in Roumania, as in (ireece, 
the literary renaissance preceded the 
political revival and the declaration of 
independence. A young Roumanian — 
whose mastery of the English language 
is so perfect that it seems almost im- 
possible to believe that he has never 
been either in England or America — 
lias made a translation of Hamlet into 
his native tongue, and the pretty lan- 
guage seems quite as well adapted as 
Italian for expressing the majestic verse 
and grandiose sentiment of the monarch 

of poets. 

The Roumanian is an agreeable lan- 
guage, hut it is passing curious. When 
] first heard it spoken it seemed to 
me that I was listening to French or 
Spanish. I hearkened intently, expect- 
ing to understand ; hut. I did not gather 
a single idea. It was vexatious, for it 
sounded familiar. Just, as T was begin- 
ning to feel certain of the meaning of 
the speaker, around some dubious cor- 
ner, at a breakneck pace, dashed the 
reckless sentences and were beyond my 
reach. People are excessively voluble 
in Roumania (especially when cursing 
their horses) ; but a. stranger with a good 
knowledge of Latin ami either Italian 
or French could learn the language in 
a few months. It is derived directly 
from the rustic' Latin which Trajan's 
colonists spoke, hut mingled of course 
v, it'.i thousands of words and phrases 



740 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

borrowed from the dialects of the peo- may be considered permanent, although 
pies who inhabited the country when the possibly many of the prominent Greek 
conquering Romans came. The Latin citizens of Bucharest would net consent 
which the colonists brought into these to this proposition. The Greek society 
provinces was the Latin of the centre of the principality is highly cultured, 
and north of Italy and the neighboring refined, and welt-to-do. 1 attended sev- 
eountries, which had already undergone oral representations of Greek plays in 
considerable modification. There were Bucharest. One of them, which was 
great numbers of people from the see- given before a very large audience, — in 
tions now known as Spain and Portugal, which, by the way, 1 did not observe a. 
and there were also Gauls anion;.;- these single Russian soldier or officer, — was a 
colonists ; so that it is not astonishing that spirited drama representing the uprising 
words clearly of Spanish or Gallic origiu of the Greeks against their oppressors 
are found side by side to-day with words and foreshadowing the call to arms for 
of indisputable Peninsular origin. Da- the succor of those Greeks in Thes- 
cian words arc still found, and the salv and Crete still under the barbarous 
language is deeply indebted both to the domination of the Turk. Then' are ten 
Slavic and the Greek tongues. The thousand Greeks in Roumania, and they 
Slavic language almost displaced the have been of substantial service in proinot- 
Roumanian at the time <>f the great ing insurrection in the provinces of Tur- 
sehism in the fifteenth century. The key in Europe. Many a hard blow struck 
Moldavians were so indignant at the for freedom has been rendered possible 
decision of the Council of Florence that by their generous gifts of money. Vol- 
the\ deposed their bishop, rejected the nines in Greek a re occasionally printed 
Latin characters which they had hither- in Roumania, and theatre programmes 
to used in all their printed books, and ami newspapers, in the prettiest of (Ire- 
adopted the Slavic letters as well as cian type, are seen Oil all the Cafe tallies. 
liturgy. It. is well that the Roman al- Line, Charles is earnest in endeavors 
I lialict was resumed at. a later day, and to promote the growth of literature, 
it is to be hoped (hat some time the arid offered a handsome prize for the 
Russians will be willing to dispense best history of tin' participation of 
with their eccentric letters, which pin- Roumania in the war of 1*77. The lan- 
duce such a confusing effect on the mind guagc is well adapted to poetical expres- 
of him who sees them for the first time, sion : it is graceful, flexible, and lends 
The blindest German type is as nothing itself readily to the conceits of metaphor 
besides these Muscovite monstrosities, and the rhythmical fancies so indispensa- 
The Slavic was long the official language ble to true poetry. There is something 
in Roumanian land. Greek had its of the wildness and the weirdness of the 
day under the Fanariots at the end of great plains on which it is spoken in its 
theseventeenthcentury ; and so rapid was form. In objurgation and invective it is 
the progress of its incursion that in less so wonderfully elastic that the stage- 
than a century it had invaded the court, drivers of the Pacific coast and of Texas 
the capital, the schools, the legal tribu- would retire from the held in despair 
mils, and the whole administration. The after having once heard a Wallachian 
reaction began with (his century, and teamster when thoroughly angry with his 
the triumph of the Roumanian speech horses. The utter whimsicality of the 



EUROPE IN STORM A\D CALM. 



741 



expressions used, nnd with which one 
becomes familiar in travelling day after 
day through the country, wns some- 
times so overwhelming that my compan- 
ions and I were compelled to roar with 
laughter when we should have reproved 
our driver for want of respect both for 
us and his beasts. 

Seven hundred thousand families live 
by agriculture in Roumania, and all the 
others who labor are engaged in trade, 
for manufactures make no progress. No 
native capitalist will risk competition 
with Austria. England, Russia, and 
France. If the government would hut 
intimate to the three hundred thousand 
gypsies in the principality that they 
must work or ho treated as vagabonds 
are served in other countries, production 
might lie remarkably increased. The 
gypsy has mechanical talent, and would 
make a good operative. But the Rou- 
manians say that he would break his 
heart if obliged to labor for a certain 
number of hours daily ; that he would 
forget his task, and wander away in the 
track of any sunbeam without the slight- 
est idea that he was doing anything 
wrong. About three-fifths of the enor- 
mous amount of cereals produced in the 
country are consumed at home ; the rest 
is exported to neighboring countries. A 
bad season for crops and a pestilence 
among the cattle would place hundreds 
of thousands of Roumanians in danger 
of starvation. The country must have 
manufactures before it can attain to any- 
thing like solid prosperity. 

It is strange that a land where manu- 
facturing is almost unknown should have 
a large number of populous towns. 
Galatz, on the Danube, has eighty thou- 
sand inhabitants ; Jassy, which may fairly 
be considered the chief city of Upper 
Roumania (old Moldavia), has ninety 
thousand. Although my impressions of 



Jassy are somewhat less enthusiastic 
than they would have been had not abso- 
lutely pouring showers of rain partially 
damped them, I left the old metropolis 
of the ancient Dacians convinced that its 
people were enterprising, liberal, and 
likely to have an important commercial 
future. The principal streets are hand- 
somely paved with asphalt, lai i down 
as well as in Paris ; here and there I 
spied a mansion of which Fifth Avenue 
or Beacon street might lie proud; and 
the public buildings were models of so- 
lidity and comfort. The hotels do not 
merit the same compliment. I thought 
the court-yard of the inn at Jassy the 
most uninviting place I had ever entered 
when I came into it one rainy afternoon : 
the mud was almost knee-deep; the 
horses floundered through it, snorting 
angrily ; some half-broken mvjiks, clad 
in greasy fur coats, were harnessing vi- 
cious-looking beasts, putting the high 
wooden collars, decorated with bells, on 
them I began to fancy tint I had 
made a mistake in my reckoning and had 
slipped over the Russian frontier. As I 
tramped across the wooden gallery which 
ran around the exterior of the hotel's 
second story, servants in blue flowing 
trousers tucked into enormous boots, 
in red or green blouses tied at the throat 
with gayly colored cords, and with bushy 
hair hanging low down upon their fore- 
heads, rose from their seats before their 
masters' doors and stood bowing obse- 
quiously until I had passed. It seemed 
like a leaf out of one of Tourgueneff's 
transcripts of Russian life. In the vast 
bedroom offered me stood a mighty 
porcelain stove, — a veritable monument, 
extending to the ceiling, and provided 
with such a labyrinth of whitewashed 
pipes that it resembled an organ rathei 
than a heating apparatus. In the din- 
ing-room the landlord seemed astonished 



742 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM 

because the small glass of cordial with prouil fronl in Jassy. The inhabitants 

which the Russians usually begin :i meal tell you with much emphasis that it is 

was refused. lie commented on the re- " under the invocation of St. Gregory, 

fusal, seemed to think that it argued a St. Chrysostom, and St. John," and 

lack of good sense, and presently asked swell with enthusiasm as they point to 

me if I were an Austrian. its lighl and graceful towers, the ara- 

II is i : • > i astonishing that Jassy has a, besques on the gigantic walls, and the 

Russian imprint, for it is but a short silver lamps in the three long and sombre 

distance from the frontier of the great naves, lighting but faintly the portrait 

northern empire, and has been occupied of the church's founder, ••Iiasil the 

many times by the troops of the Czars. Wolf," whose very history most of the 

As in the war of 1877 it was the first citizens have never heard, but who, they 

place into which a force was thrown vaguely say, •• was a great man and had 

after the various passages of the l'ruth, seventeen children." The Three Ilie- 

IVom the beginning of the eighteenth rarchs and St. Nicholas — a monastery 

century to the middle of the nineteenth, built in 1 171 by Stephen the Great — are 

At the time of my spring visit Russian the chief wonders of Jassy. Princes 

officers were already there, buying forage and their retainers have moved to Bueha- 

for the army soon to arrive. A French rest, and their mansions, dignified with 

writer recounts that <>n one occasion a the title of " palaces," lu.vc fallen into 

Muscovite General (in times past, be it the hands of the Jews. The Hebrew 

understood) learned that there were not thrives at Jassy. T had the honor of 

cattle enough to draw the transport being presented to the principal banker 

wagons from Jassy on towards the Dan- of that persuasion in the town, and sat, 

ube. " Well, then, we must hitch 11)1 with him ill his office on Sunday to see 

the bovards" (the Roumanian aristoc- him attend to business. Long-bearded 

racy), said this lively General. The men. clad in skull-caps and gabardines, 

Prince do Ligne, in his correspondence hovered about, seeking his presence 

from Jassy, •" 1 7 s s . tells a good many eagerly, and a group of them engaged 

stories which do not reflect credit on the ill conversation ornamented and em- 

coiiduct of the Russians, Perhaps a phasized by stately gestures was unlike 

certain rude northern impatience of the anything to be seen in western Europe. 

slow, shirtless character of the Roiima- Poor Jews and indescribably filthy and 

nian peasantry was the cause of some rheumatic gypsy beggars abounded, and 

severe Russian measures. made the air ring with their appeals for 

Jassy, like Bucharest, is very rich in alms The melancholy sect heretofore 

churches and in relies. Roumania is alluded to as self-mutilators flourishes 

everywhere provided with about ten in this town and possesses a church, 

times as many churches as the people These people were driven out of Russia, 

can use. The tonus of religion in all but have never been refused permission 

sections of the country seem to promote to remain in Roumania or in Bulgaria, 

the growth of innumerable monasteries, in which latter country there are many. 

shrines, cathedrals, anil minor houses Wretched as the environs of Jassy 

of worship. The "Three Hierarehs," appear when soaked with rain, when the 

the only worthy rival of the massive and cottages seem about to float away 

exquisite cathedral of ArgCsu, rears its through the tall grass, and when the 



EUROPE IN STORM AXI> CALM. 



743 



philosophical stork, calmly perched on 
one le<j, seems to have decided, after 
due survey, that it is about time to go 
somewhere else, — in summer these same 
fields arc ravishiugly beautiful. The 
hills are covered with flowers, the plains 
with abundant crops. Riding along the 
roads leading to Bucharest, or out toward 
the Austrian Bukovina, one comes every 
few minutes upon some rustic hind who 
is in dress and figure almost the exact 
counterpart of the captive warriors to be 
seen on the bas-reliefs of the famous 
Trajan Column. The type has changed 
little if any in twenty centuries. It 
seems impossible that such specimens of 
humanity as these blank-faced tillers 
should make the landscape blossom thus 
with plenty. But they do it, and if 
educated would accomplish far greater 
wonders. 

From .lassy a picturesque and little- 
frequented road leads to Bolgrad, a 
quaint town of ten thousand inhabitants, 
situated in that portion of Bessarabia 
ceded by a treaty to Russia, only to he 
re-ceded, by the Treaty of Paris, to Mol- 
davia, and to lie again handed over to 
Russia by King Charles of Roumania, 
in exchange for the Dobrudscha, which 
had been wrested from the Turks in 
Bulgaria. The population in this Bessa- 
rabian land, which Russia lias so long 
coveted, is distinctly Roumanian. The 
men are rather more manly in bearing 
than their brethren of other sections; 
they have broad foreheads, frank eves. 
long, coarse hair, dense black mustaches, 
well-turned limbs, and generally carry 
weapons. But they live in hideous little 
cabins, unfitfor the habitations of cuttle, 
banked with mud and furnished inside 
with the rudest articles of prime neces- 
sity. In winter, when the heavy snows 
cover the roadways so deeply that loco- 
motion is next to impossible, these 



worthies hibernate in their villages. 
They protect themselves from the cold 
by sheepskin coats and huge shaggy 
mantles. The women are dull, submis- 
sive, and rarely pretty. There are one 
hundred and forty thousand inhabitants 
in Bessarabia, and King ( lharles thought 
so much of them that he Considered him- 
self a loser by taking the Dobrudscha., 
which gave him two hundred thousand 
subjects. 

Between Bucharest and .lassy, on or 
near the line of rail leading to the Rus- 
sian frontier, there are many important 
and interesting towns, rendered doubly 
attractive of late by the fact that war 
has just swept through them or hovered 
near them. The hind is rich with sou- 
venirs of other campaigns than those of 
Russians. The peasant now and then 
unearths some coin or bronze or brass 
ornament bearing the effigy of Alexan- 
der the Great, who once made an expe- 
dition into Dacia. On mountain slopes 
are the traces of old cities whose his- 
tory no man knows, and excavations 
among the half-buried walls of the long- 
forgotten temples and palaces bring to 

1 i Li" 1 1 1 potteries, glass, bones of domestic 
animals, stone weapons, and bits of effi- 
gies in metal, so corroded that they can- 
not be distinguished. The earth is here 
a vast tomb of dead-and-gone civiliza- 
tions, wars, and conquests ; it is tranquil 
as the centuries roll on, awaiting the 
signal for another period of fruition. 
At the noted Barbosi — one of the first 
places to become celebrated in 1877, 
because the Russians seized upon a 
bridge there in time to protect, it against 
a descent meditated by the captains of 
Turkish monitors — are the remains of a 
vast Roman intrenched camp ami for- 
tresses. The churches inGalatz and the 
ramparts in Braila are built of the mas- 
sive stones taken from the walls which 



744 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

the rider Romans piled up as memorials In the eastern flanks of the Carpathians 

of their valor, and guarantees of (heir lie buried secrets which were unknown 

reward for it. Catacombs containing to Herodotus himself, and upon which 

lias-reliefs, inns, slalneltes. and inscrip- we may some day Stumble. If the 

(ions were also discovered at Barbosi newly emancipated principality is per- 

dnring (he last century. Galatz, near mitted to enjoy permanent peace im- 

Barbosi, is renowned chiefly for possess- portant discoveries will be made within 

ing the tomb of Mazeppa and as an im- its limits in the course of a few years, 

portant commercial port. The Greeks In addition to the treasures in the Bu- 

are quite as numerous and powerful eharcst museum several princes and one 

there as in Bucharest, and in the lirsl or two wealthy private citizens have 

quarter of (his century rose with great rich collections of coins, statues, and 

spirit several times against the Turks, vases, which serve to illustrate, the his- 

< ic occasion slaying hundreds before tory of (he earliest years of the Christian 

(heir wrath was appeased. The Mils- era. 

sulmans were not slow at reprisal. How In all the Roumanian towns which rise 

many times has the water of the Danube above the dignity of villages there is a 

been crimsoned with the blood of large class of persons who do nothing 

battle! Yet the majestic river Hows from year's end to year's end. How 

through lands which seem to have been they exist is a puzzle past eomprcheii- 

intended for the home of eternal peace, sion. In Ploiesci, which was for some 

Let us hope that with the new era of time the head-quarters of (he Czar 

progress will come freedom from all Alexander and the Grand Duke Nicholas 

barbaric struggles such as in time past at the beginning of the Russian campaign 

have made Servia. I.'oiunania, and Bui- against Turkey, there were hundreds 

garia a veritable " dark and bloody of families enjoying leisure, but without 

ground" in Europe. any visible means of support. The 

Bucharest has a fine national museum, husbands sat all day in (he caf&S smok- 

which has been greatly enriched within ing cigarettes and discussing the situ- 

the last few years by the collections of ation, or reclined on benches in their 

antiquities unearthed by the delving gardens indolently enjoying the soft, 

peasants. At first the Wallaehs did not spring breezes. Their wives and 

fancy these things worth preserving, daughters appeared to outdo (heir nat- 

The farmer broke up statues to use them ural protectors in laziness. Yet all 

for boundary stones, and the teamster were well dressed, and even made a 

wdio found a rusty coin while lighting certain pretension to style, affecting to 

his evening camp-fire spurned it away be- sneer at the rough, homely ways of 

cause it was not bright and new, like the some of (he northern folk who had 

lt'n ;\\h] Im i~ti — the Roumanian francs and come down to light the Turk. The 

centimes — of the present day. An .lews controlled (he trade. The Rou- 

eminent archaeologist, named Odobesco, manian felt himself too line, evidently, 

who has written much on (he subject of to sell linen coats at ten francs apiece 

the tumuli scattered everywhere in Ron- ami bottles of colored water labelled 

mania, believes that a careful search "Bordeaux" at. the same price to the 

would bring to light many articles be- Russian new-comers. In Giurgevo (he 

longing to the Stone and Bronze Ages, same lazy, listless -lass was to be seen* 



Ell ROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



745 



everywhere, and seemed too idle to move 
out of the way of the bombardment. 
At Simnitza, Master Nicolai,with whom 
for a short time I had the pleasure of 
residing, endeavored to explain his cir- 
cumstances. "The crops, you see, 
bring in a little," he said; "the fowls 
a little more ; once in a while 1 sell a 
butt of wine ; and. Mon Dieu ! one does 
not need much money after all." This 
was eminently true in Master Nicolai's 
case, for he seemed to live upon air and 
cigarette smoke. 1 never saw him at 
table during my visit, and it is my firm 
belief that in a week he did not consume 
as much solid food as a full-grown Eng- 
lish or American lad would eat in a 
6ingle day. 

Towns like Ploiesci, Giurgevo, Crai- 
ova, Slatina, all have a certain smart- 
ness, and take their tone from Bu- 
charest ; but there is no solid prosperity 
in them. Morals are rather looser than 
the best class of Roumanians would like 
to admit. Money is too powerful, and 
will buy almost anything. A little 
money will shake an obstacle to the 
completion of a contract, — will secure 
exceptional privilege and honor ; a great 
deal of money makes all opposition to 
one's wishes vanish as by magic. Ve- 
nality is not so marked in the peasantry 
as it is in the middle classes. Of the 
corruption of society in the principal 
towns much has been said and written. 
It is as bad as it can be ; but the Hun- 
garians and Austrians, who spend much 
of their time in criticising the Rouma- 
nians, are quite as faulty as the inhabi- 
tants of the little Kingdom. Divorce 
is easy and frequent throughout Rou- 
mania. There is little or no violent ven- 
geance practised in eases of domestic 
infelicity. The exterior of society is 
spotless; and the stranger spending a. 
few days among the people would fancy 



them absolutely undisturbed by any ir- 
regularities of conduct. King Charles 
and his wife have always given an ex- 
ample of the utmost devotion to the 
sacredness of the family tie, and as a 
natural consequence are universally 
loved and respected by the members of 
refined society in (he state. 

Almost every Roumanian town, small 
and large, possesses innumerable gar- 
dens, which in summer make even the 
ordinary dwellings agreeable residences. 
In winter the wooden houses are not 
quite so pleasant, for the W attach under- 
stands as poorly as the Italian how to 
warm himself, and he growls all through 
the severe cold season, which he con- 
siders as a kind of penance. With the 
cessation of the spring rains his serenity 
of temper returns. Each town has its 
gypsy quarter, and the types seen there 
are simply indescribable. Men and 
women of this class have extremely prim- 
itive ideas with regard to clothing, and 
appear absolutely devoid of shame. For 
four hundred and fifty years LheTsigane 
has been known in Roumania, and the 
race has made little or no improvement 
m that time. The gypsies still steal when 
they dare, beg when they can, and work 
only when obliged. 

The country is as rich in monasteries as 
in churches. What a wonderful field are 
these grand Carpathians for the painter. 
who as yethas left them unexplored ! The 
crags, crowned with turrets and ramparts ; 
the immense forests, which extend from 
snow-capped summits to vales where the 
grass is always green : the paths winding 
along verges of awful precipices ; the 
tiny villages, where shepherds come to 
sleep at night, and where the only per- 
sons who have ever seen people from 
western Europe are the soldiers and the 
priests, who mayhap have travelled a 
little ; the exquisite sunsets tilled with 



74". EUROPE l\ STORM AND CALM. 

semi-tropical splendors, which tl land many blood} battles. Tradition informs 

transfigure the vast country side, — allare us that Stephen the Great, unfortunate 
new and wonderful, and offer fen thou- in battle with the Turks, fled toward the 
sand charms to him who is weary of fortress, but that his mother Helen corn- 
Switzerland and tin- Alps, the Scot.- manded the gates to be shut in his face, 
tish highlands, and the woods of Fontaine- crying out that unless he came home 
blc.'iii. Despite the rains which followed victor lie was no son of hers. Where- 
me when 1 threaded the paths in the upon this dutiful sou recovered Ins pres- 
neighborhood of superb old Niamtzo's ence of mind, and, rallying his flying 
fortress and monastery, only six hours' men, turnedand inflicted upon the Turks 
ride by diligence from a convenient point a chastisement which the Osmanli nation 
on the railwaj from Bucharest to Jassy, remembers to this day. 
1 returned enchanted with the beauties Niamtzo possesses various buildings 
of the Carpathian range. I do not re- of more or less modern construction — 
member in which of the novelsof Ouida au insane asylum, ami one or two cloth 
there is a description of this Roumanian factories in which the monks labor, 
mountain country and one of the raonas- Not far from the old monastery is a 
(cries in an almost inaccessible nook ; but famous convent for women, distinguished 
I know that in journeyingabout themoun- from similar institutions in Roman Cath- 
tains it seemed to me that she had not olic countries by the extreme freedom 
exaggerated, and that her rhapsody was of the inmates. This convent of Agapia 
full of profound truth. has contained as many as five hundred 
Niamtzo is the chief of Roumanian "nuns "at a time, all belonging to the 
historical monasteries. Ets bells rang to upper ranks of society. None of these 
call the faithful monks to prayer a. bun- ladies considered themselves as hound 
died vears before Columbus discovered to ghostly vows, and Agapia and other 
America, yet some of its massive walls convents became the centres of so much 
are still in good condition. The savage intrigue that the government was com- 
graudeur of its site, in a --pot, among pelled sonic years since to place re- 
high mountains tipped with snow, with strictions upon them. The clergy aided 
fir-trees standing round about it like sol- the secular officials to reform many 
emu sentinels, is sufficiently impressive ; scandalous lapses from discipline in 
but the edifice is more striking than its these establishments. Sojourn in the 
surroundings. To-day it has two convent, once adopted, is for life, and 
churches, ten bell-towers, and live or six many rich Roumanian families sacrifice 
hundred monks. These lead a laborious one of their daughters that they may 

albeit rather irresponsible existence. have more wealth for the child they love 
The old fortress near it was erected in best. The revenues of both the monas- 
tic thirteenth century, by a body of Teu- t cries a m Icon vents are enormous. Nianit- 
tons whom a Hungarian king had em- zo, which was at one time under the 
ployed to check the incursions of the special protection of the emperor of 

Tartars, ami hence the name of both Russia, disposes of nearly nine hundred 

fort and monastery, for Niamtzo. or thousand francs yearly, and Agapia's in- 

Nemtzu, in Roumanian means "German." come is one hundred and twenty thou- 

After the Germans who built it had sand francs. There arc many convents 

passed away, Niamtzo was the scene of in the mountains near Niamtzo, and 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



747 



indeed there are few sections of Roinnania 

in which these institutions do not exist. 

In a convent not far from Bucharest 
a consul, who was a guest fur the after- 
noon, was somewhat surprised to hear 
a number of nuns constantly repenting 
for more than an hour a woman's name. 
At last his curiosity prompted him to 
ask the lady superior what was the 
reason of this repetition. 

"Oh," said she smiling, -'it's only a 
priviyhiero." 



■■ And what is that? " 

" It is a prayer for the death of 
a certain person who has won the 
affections <>f a great dignitary away 
from his lawful wife. The privighiero 
is paid for by the wife, and is to 
he continued at short intervals for forty 
days." 

The consul did not dare to ask the 
lady if she thought the prayer would be 
answered. 



74K EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE. 

Willi Ihc Russians in Bulgaria. — On the Danube. — Simnitza. — The Ex-tempoi-ancous Imperial Ilead- 
Qtiarlcrs. -- The Early < lampaign in Bulgaria.— Singing of the Russian Troops. — Sistova. — Bul- 
garian Men. — The Farmers. Manners of the Russian Army Officers.— The Grand DukcNichol i^- 
TIk Elder Skobcleff. — The Russian Emperor in the Field. 

A s 1 approached Simnitza just at teamsters, broad-hatted, gloomy, and 

-£j- dusk one evening in June, 1*77. dazed by the spectacle of the thousands 

I saw a long line of fires blazing on tin- of strangers who had suddenly invaded 

hills beyond the Danube and hailed their country ; Russian geuerals followed 

them with joy. They were the funeral by stall's whose uniforms had once 

pyns of Turkish oppression, the beacon been brilliant, but were now indescriba- 

lights of liberty and law in the East; blydusty and worn ; and genial, amiable 

they denoted the presence of the new Muscovite infantry-men trudging | liilo- 

crusaders, the sturdy Russians. sophically along the roads, hunting in 

At the foot of the little hill down which vain for food, for medicine, for water, 
my rude wagon was rattling a large camp for wine. — for everything. In those June- 
was located. Lights gleamed from tiny days Simnitza was preeminently the 
tents. The clash of arms and the murmur place where nothing was to he had at 
of thousands of voices were borne with any price. Food was quite out of the 
(he stilling dust to my ears. For days I question. The army passing by brought 
had lived in dust, had breathed it. had its cattle with it; bread was unheard of; 
drunk it in my tea, and eaten it with the soldier subsisted on the ration of 
my hard bread and harder Roumanian soup, with a huge round of beef, which 
cheese. I had slept in it in filthy khans, the regimental cooks served out to him 
in filthier villages, where half-grown daily. But the civilian? For him there 
boys and girls ran about naked. I was was no food, unless he had brought it a 
coated with dust. When I moved clouds hundred miles, unless his servants could 

arose ar 1 me. When a Cossack pa- cook it, anil unless those servants could 

trol passed, spectral in the gathering go half a. mile from town to procure the 

darkness, he left behind him a pillar of fuel with which to make the tire. All 

dust which seemed to mount to the very this we learned within ten minutes after 

skies. Interminable wagon trains, drawn our arrival in simnitza. 

by shaggy, ill-tempered Russian horses. There was a hotel — a vast, rambling 

wallowed in the wearisome highways structure, with long galleries out of 

which stretched for miles across the which chambers opened somewhat, like 

treeless wastes. Artillery creaked cells in a penitentiary ; but t his was full, 

slowly forward. The shuffling landlord seemed to take 

As we drove into the diminutive town malicious pleasure in refusing all de- 

we found ourselves in the midst of a mauds. Threats, entreaties, money, were 

shouting, bustling crowd of Hebrew of no avail. Even the stable-yard was 

merchants crazy for gain : Roumanian crowded with Russian wagons, and Cos- 



KUROPK IN STORM AND CALM. 



749 



sucks were lying about on the straw 
smoking, and singing quaint songs which 
stirred one's poetic sens-.' curiously. A 
bath, clean clothes, something to eat, 
and a \'r\v hours of repose would have 
enabled one to enter thoroughly into 
the spirit of the scene. Hut one might 
as well have asked for the moon or the 
chaste Pleiades or the soothing Orion. 

In sheer desperation I went with my 
companion, while the servants prose- 
cuted their search for lied and board, 
to the long plateau near the Danube 
shore. The moon hail arisen, and en- 
abled us to see the great silent river 
flowing steadily and majestically past 
the islands and the steep banks oppo- 
site, as serene as if no great battle had 
ever been fought near it. A long line 
of gleams indicated the position of the 
bridge of boats established after tile 
'! iirks had been driven from the hills 
Of Sistova. Numerous correspondents 
of English and French newspapers who 
presently joined us said that on the Bul- 
garian bank abundant food and excel- 
lent wine were to lie found. This was 
aggravation. We sighed for the prom- 
ised laud, spent the night in a wretched 
apology for a chamber infested by 
fleas and other small vermin, and awoke 
next morning unrefreshed. We then 
presented ourselves at the Imperial head- 
quarters. 

In a large enclosure on a bluff near 
the Danube majesty and authority had 
pitched their tents, and directly oppo- 
site them were numerous ambulances, 
in which lay the brave fellows wounded 
in the attack on Sistova. Grand duke, 
high officer of justice, and prince, gen- 
erals of division and aides-de-camp were 
lodged under canvas covers, beneath 
which llie dust cruelly crept. By day 
the sun scorched the unhappy crusad- 
ers ; by night a cold wind blew from the 



river and chilled them. The ( 'zarof all the 
Bussias slept in a disused hospital and 
ate his dinner in a. marquee. Sometimes 
the dust was half an inch thick on the 
plates on the Imperial table. At noon 
lunch was served for all gentlemen at- 
tached to the head quarters ; in the even- 
ing the Emperor selected his guests. The 
foreign military attaches, the journalists, 
and the artists set up their tents and 
shifted for themselves. They longed for 
the definite advance into Bulgaria, for 
inaction and privation together were 
simply intolerable. 

Every day, over the poorly traced 
highway leading from Giurgevo to Sim- 
nit/.a, camo thousands of troops, grimly 
bending to their work, setting their faces 
sternly to the East. We never tired of 
watching the solid infantry-men as they 
plodded by, now answering the saluta- 
tion of a. General with a shout which 
made one's heart bent faster than usual, 
now singing almost reverently in chorus. 
The Cossacks were our chief delight. 
Dust and fatigue seemed to have no 
power to choke the harmony which welled 
up melodiously, as from the pipes of a 
mighty organ, whenever a Cossack reg 
iment halted. On they came, now at 
dawn, now at dusk, thousands of lithe, 
sinewy, square-faced, long-haired youth, 
with shrewd twinkling eyes, small hands 
and feet, nerves of steel, and gestures full 
of utmost earnestness. The leader of 
each squadron usually "lined" the hymn 
or ballad which was sung. Behind him 
hundreds of voices took up the chorus, 
and prolonged it until the heavens seemed 
tilled with sweet notes. Sometimes the 
singers recited the exploits of an an- 
cient hetman of their tribes ; sometimes 
an exquisite and tender sentiment of 
melancholy pervaded their song — a 
longing for home, for kindred, for babe 
and wife ; sometimes a rude worship per- 



750 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

meated every note. From the camps of that visits to Sistova were allowed and 

these stout fellows, who arc the eves and that the road into Bulgaria was open. 

ears of the Russian army when it is in Seen from the Danube, Sistova does 

an enemy's country, nightly arose the not present a very attractive appear- 

mournful and spiritual cadences of the ance. Here and there a white minaret 

"Evening Prayer,'" followed by the Rus- gleams in the sun ; musses of small cot- 

sian national anthem, than which no ua- tages with thatched roofs, colored like 

tion has a grander. When the breezes the cliffs to which they cling, are grouped 

were favorable we could hear the singing with but little picturesqueuess. Near 

of the Russian troops beyond the Dan- the Danube there are a few large ware- 

ube, and from time to time through the houses and ••hotels.'' But that part 

lone,' night cheer answered cheer across of Sistova which cannot be seen from 

the wide dark waters. This singing was the river is quite imposing, and there 

a marked feature of the early campaign the Turk, who has an eye for the beau- 

in Bulgaria. On the march, when near tiful in nature, had chosen his quarter, 

the enemy, infantry and cavalry were where he dwelt proudly apart from the 

alike silent, grave, watchful, but at night despised Christian, 

nothing could restrain thechorus. Grand, We scrambled down the steep hanks 

plaintive, often pathetic, it mounted to from Simnitza one terribly hot day, 

the stars; and when the Turks heard it, fought our way through the throngs 

it must have impressed them powerfully. of Jewish merchants, pushed past the 

In tin' savage self-complacency of his troops waiting the signal to cross the 

own prayer the Mussulman may have bridge, and were finally permitted to 

disdained the Giaour's expression of pass on. Dismounting from our horses, 

worship and adoration, but his soul we led them across this remarkable pon- 

must have been touched bv the liar- toou structure, which was a I'terward sup- 

mony and rhythm. I know that the plemeuted by a second and stronger one, 

stolid faces of certain Anatolians who though, as the event has proved, not 

were held as prisoners at Simnitza bright- more capable than the fust of holding 

ened a little when they heard the bands its own againsl Father Danube's wintry 

of singing < ossacks pass; but whether wrath In each pontoon sat a hardy 

the brightness was caused by hatred or sailor, silent, contentedly munching 

admiration I cannot tell. The Bulga- black-bread or reading a Moscow news- 

rians seemed dazed by so much singing ; paper. The Russians were wise ill 

and although at a later period they tried choosing Simnitza as their principal 

to imitate it. even inventing a ••national crossing-point, for there the islands aided 

hvuin." which was al best but a. melan- in the work. lint when later in the 

cholv affair, they always did it in a campaign, in the dreary rainy days of 

half-hearted and frightened manner, as autumn, those islands had become 

if they feared that the ferocious Turk, transformed into lakes of liquid mud, 

with bastinado and knife, were about the spectacle of dead and dying horses, 

to appear. men suffering with fever in the insuf- 

Al last the army authorities, who had ficient shelter of tents, broken and 

held us back, informed journalists, almost submerged wagons, was dis- 

artists, and all civilians who had re- heartening. A Scotch journalist insists 

ceived permission to follow the army that the greatest battle fought by the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



751 



Russians was with the Danube during 
the whole of one terrible day and night, 
when the river seemed anxious to aid 
the Turks and to carry out the pro- 
gramme which Abdul Kerim had so 
fondly imagined possible, — that of is- 
olating the invader in Bulgaria, and 
then falling upon him both in front and 
rear. 

The approaches to Sistova by the only 
practicable road are wildly romantic, 
weird, desolate. I could think of nothing 
but the region described by Robert Brown- 
ing in his poem, " Childe Harold to the 
Dark Tower came." A sense of fore- 
boding seemed to fasten on one as be 
rode in among thegiant hills. But there 
was no enemy left to be wary of, even 
at thatearly date. Audacious tactics, or 
" lack of tactics," as the Austrian mili- 
tary attach^ insisted upon saying, had 
succeeded, and at the cost of compar- 
atively few lives. Dragimiroff and his 
braves had pushed the Turks well bark 
toward Tirnova. So we slept in peace 
at Sistova in the court-yard of a pretty 
cottage which a wealthy Turk had left 
in haste, and which the Bulgarians bad 
plundered afterwards. The Bulgarians 
had not been civil enough to leave us 
even a chair or table ; so we were com- 
pelled to unpack our camp equipage. 
The servants built a fire in the yard, 
made tea, produced a thin Turkish wine 
which they had found in the town, gave 
us bread, — which seemed a miracle, as 
we had been absolutely without it for 
three days, — and even hinted at the 
possibility of having a tish out of the 
Danube. But that was too much. We 
battled with temptation, and, consoling 
ourselves with tea. retired to rest in our 
wagon. No Turk came to disturb us. 
although the Bulgarians had assured us 
that we should have our throats cut if 
we dared to remain in the Turkish quar- 



ter over night; but our horses, picketed 

at the wagon-pole, seemed inclined at 
intervals in the night to munch our un- 
protected toes; and this caused us no 
little uneasiness. Lying wakeful in the 
mellow moonlight, whose beams stole 
even under the wagon's leathern hood, 
nothing could be more inexpressibly 
comical than the grave, elongated, sym- 
pathetic, inquiring faces of our four 
horses as they peered in at us. I slept 
as dawn came, and dreamed that the 
Turk had returned and was pillaging his 
own house. 

Many points in Sistova remind one 
of old Italian towns. A crumbling for- 
tress on a pinnacle : a mysterious-looking 
mansion set on a shelf of rock; a bal- 
cony half concealed by perfumed shrubs 
and fair blossoms ; a street of stairs hewn 
from solid rock ; a white pathway winding 
along the edge of a miniature precipice, 
— these were elements of the picturesque 
which we had seen elsewhere. But the 
dark faces which glared at us from behind 
lattices; the old kaimakam of stately 
port and turbaned bead ; the captive 
bashi-bazouk, with his hideous, igno- 
rant scowl, his belt filled with weapons. 
and his shambling gait ; the timorous Bul- 
garian women, in their bright, neatly 
woven garments, — the women who 
rose up at our approach, and seemed 
not to dare to believe that their souls 
were their own, — these were new types. 
We were not specially inclined to ad- 
mire the humbler samples of the Bul- 
garian men : their ways were the least 
bit fawning, and they seemed deficienl 
in energy. These much down-trodden 
folk were beginning however to have 
some semblance of national feeling. 
They covered their red head-gear with 
handkerchiefs or strips of linen, and 
marked them with the image of the 
redeeming cross. It was also under- 



7. r )2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

.stood liv the Bulgarians that the cross so exactly had he caught our national 
upon the door of u shop or house would inflection. Out of this little group of 
preserve it from intrusion when prying young men may spring the one who is 
Cossack and more inquisitive native to prompt the nation to a new intellect- 
began to search for plunder in the sur- uallife. It is but fail' to say that we did 
rendered town. Some critics who have not see the representatives of the better 
been anxious to please the carping Eng- classes of Bulgarians at Sistova. The 
lish conservatives, who naturally desire young men who had received an English 
to place the Bulgarians in as unfavor- education were generally natives of points 
able a light as possible, have accused nearer the Balkan range. The people 
the latter of much pillaging and cruelty, near the Danube have l>ecn much more 
That they did aid the Cossacks in sack- bitterly oppressed and degraded than 
ing the Turkish houses in Sistova and those on the Balkan slopes or beyond 
Tirnova alter the oppressor had tied the mountains. The Turkish tax-gath- 
there can be no doubt — no more doubt erer's most ferocious raids were made 
than that almost any other nation that on the fat lands near the great river, and 
had been so horribly abused for centuries there the people were naturally less intcr- 
would have gone further, and on the ap- esting, All individuality seemed to have 
pioach of the deliverer would have mas- been crushed out of them. They were 
sacred the oppressor rather than have jealous and suspicious of their friends, 
allowed him to flee. After the first Hush as well as of their known enemies. I 
of excitement was over the goods taken narrowly escaped a severe beating at 
from Turkish houses were piled in one an angry and herculean peasant's hands 
of the public squares, and official notice one evening because 1 insisted that he 
was given that when the Turkish inhab- should sell some grain from his overflow- 
itants returned they might identify and ing store for my starving horses, lie re- 
reclaim their property. fused, and flew into a passion when com- 
If the mass of Bulgarian men did not pelled to sell. Long contact with the 
impress us favorably, it was not so with treachery and greed of the Turk had 
the educated and refined specimens sent made the fanner morose and mean. If 
forth from our American college in Con- he could only keep what he had aecu- 
stantinople. The acute English critics, undated, even though it might rot, he 
who seemed to follow the campaign for thought himself lucky, lie knew little 
the express purpose of finding fault with of the value of exchange, and eared less. 
everything, professed to like the educated Farther in the interior of Bulgaria we 
Bulgarian still less than his uneducated found the peasant, Turkish and Bul- 
brother. They found him arrogant, pre- garian, willing to trade and sharp at a 
tentious, idle, and lacking in stamina, bargain. But in a squalid village of 
We found him gentle, possessed of the huts near the Danube one day we paid 
soft and yielding manner of these south- two francs for some bread and cheese, 
ern peoples, it is true ; but we also found for the privilege of reposing in a cottage, 
him earnest, well grounded in general after eight hours in the saddle, and for 
knowledge, and anxious for special study, some milk. The coin was placed on the 
lie seemed to us like a young American, low Turkish table around which we had 
so well did he speak the English which been seated cross-legged while we ate 
iie had learned in Robert College, and our simple meal, and when we went 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



753 



away it was still lying untouched. They 
were not even curious to know what it 
was, nor did they thank us for it. I feel 
convinced that they did not comprehend 

that it was money. They gave help if 
one's wagon-wheel came off, or drew 
water from the wells for one, or told the 

route, and warned us against dangerous 
roads with alacrity and zeal, and some- 
times crossed themselves, saying that 
they did the service in Christ's name ; 
but barter was difficult, and annoyed 
and angered them. 

To be compelled to hurry was likewise 
very distasteful to Bulgarians every- 
where. We offered four francs for a 
small kid cooked and so wrapped up 
that we could have it in our wagon to 
rely on for supper in a certain village. 
The good man who was to do the work 
finally gave it up. saying that it never 
could be ready for live o'clock in the 
morning, although the order was given 
at three o'clock on a previous afternoon. 
Nothing awed and amazed the peasantry 
so much as to see a plain white with 
tents at evening, and when they arose 
in the morning to find the camp 
gone. The women were loud in their 
complaints against the Turks in all the 
Danube country. Near the Balkans they 
said but little, and seemed ashamed to 
acknowledge thai they had ever been 
under Turkish domination The moun- 
taineers were every way more effective in 
serving the cause than the peasantry of 
the plain, who seemed to look at the 
passage of the Russians with nothing 
more than gratitude and curiosity. In 
Sistova the peasants seemed densely 
stupid; in Gabrova, sympathetic, and 
even sharp. Gabrova lies at the foot of 
the mountains. 

We pressed onward from Sistova, ex- 
pecting that the head-quarters would 
soon be transferred to some point in 



Bulgaria ; and our expectations were 
not vain. At a miserable village called 
Tzarevitza, where there had been a con- 
siderable Turkish population, we found 
nothing but empty huts, and one or two 
regiments camped in the pleasant woods 
near by. In the afternoon all tin 4 tine 
gentlemen of the head-quarters arrived, 
half famished, choked with thirst, and 
the gorgeous uniforms which they had 
put on for their entry into the enemy's 
country tarnished and almost ruined. 
Generals young and old, princes, cap- 
tains, diplomatic agents, and attaches 
broke suddenly upon our little camp, 
which we had established in the middle 
of a forest, and demanded food and 
drink. The tent-mattings were littered 
with yataghans, beautiful Kirghese 
swords, — souvenirs of Central Asian 
campaigns, — Smith & Wesson revolv- 
ers, the jewelled rapier of the court 
official, and the thin blade of the diplo- 
matist. The unfortunate representatives 
of Russia's dignity and authority were 
destined to wait nearly twelve hours be- 
fore their wagons, containing tents, food, 
drink, and clothing, came up with them. 
So they beguiled the hours with mighty 
draughts of tea. which we were happily 
able to furnish them, and charmed us 
with those two prominent traits of the 
Russian gentleman's character, demo- 
cratic freedom from affectation and 
perfect amiability. These are good qual- 
ities, especially in warriors. Add to 
these an almost excessive frankness. 
even in dealing with their own faults. 
and I think one may safely say that the 
Russians an' worthy praise. There is in 
them muchof the keenness of the ( Mental. 
They can dissemble when they feel that 
they are surrounded by those who are 
hostile to their aims, and if need be can 
cajole as well. The Russian has a sharp 
sense of resentment, especially if he 



754 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



fancies that his motives are misunder- 
stood or wilfully misinterpreted; but he 
has none of the stiffness of the Prussian, 
— nothing whatever of Ins arrogance. 
A correspondent once unwittingly gave 
his card to one grand duke, asking him 
to hand it to another. The person ad- 
dressed promised, with the must perfect 
politeness, to do it, and did not appear 
to think it extraordinary. 

There was hut one critical remark 
which some of the journalists following 
the army were inclined to make, and 
thai was, that perhaps these gracious 
and amiable gentlemen who chatted so 
pleasantly in our tent at Tzarevitza, and 
whose manners were so perfect while so 
utterly simple, would disdain their enemy, 
or would neglect some great opportunity 

to crush him, which would result in their 
own undoing. The persons who had 
suggested this were not slow to insisi 
that it was true when the Plevna check 

occurred, and for a time they exulted in 
the pride of what they were pleased to 

term their foresight. But presently 
Plevna fell, and a hundred voices coun- 
selled Turkey to sue for peace. Certain 
laxities of discipline and freedom from 
proper caution observable early in the 

Campaign were corrected when the whole 
vast military machine was thoroughly in 
motion. The rigidity of Prussian train- 
ing is impossible to Russians: their 
natures and their sense of individual 
manliness alike rebel against it. ( (ffieers 
and men are much nearer to each other 
than in German or other armies. A 
country ruled by a man who has absolute 
power over the subject has an array in 
which the officers are often familiar, and 
generally free and easy, with their sol- 
diers. During the entry of certain regi- 
ments into Tirnova a lieutenant whom 
we knew came to our room, and from its 
windows pelted his own men with flowers 



as they marched by. The Generals and 
other superior officers are very like those 
of America, in their complete disregard 
of anything like formulas and their con- 
tempt for undue assumption of dignity. 
From the emperor to the aide-de-camp 
there is not a single degree of rank in 
which one does not find unfailing, ser- 
viceable politeness, — that politeness 
which has been so accurately described 
as proceeding from " natural goodness 
of heart." 

The Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of 
the Emperor, and commander-in-chief of 
the Russian armies in Europe, arrived in 
Tzarevitza toward evening, and took up 
his quarters in a deserted cottage. The 
only sign of his presence was a small Hag 
and an infantry band, which astounded 
the few Bulgarians left in the village 
with some rather noisy selections from 
the repertoire of Maitre Offenbach. 1 
first saw the Grand Duke engaged in 
cooking liver and bacon over a huge tire 
precisely as our frontiersmen cook venison 
— in slices spitted on a large hard-wood 
stick. As evening approached a certain 
amount of ceremony was preserved in 
the yard of the cottage, where most of 
the members of the staff had gathered, 
but Nicholas paid small attention to it. 
lie strode to and fro with long, clastic, 
swinging step, superintending his own 
dinner, although there were numerous 
servants in attendance. The veteran 
Cossack General, Skobeleff, father of the 
youthful General whose reckless heroism 
has given him fame throughout Europe 
ami America, had witli his own hands 
slaughtered and dressed a sheep, and it 
was now roasting in the fashion which 
has been known in the East for the last 
three thousand years. 

Nicholas had a face which in repose was 
proud, imperious, and showed wonderful 
capacity for passion. A lightning-like 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



755 



temper might at a moment's notice be 
betrayed by those keen eyes, ordinarily 
filled with pleasant smiles. Quick in 
all his motions, he liked quickness in 
others ; he rode a horse which it wore 
others out to follow, and was fond of 




GENERAL SKOBELEFF. 

dashing away to some distant village, 
and then sending for the others to come 
up with him, while he was on the road to 
Tiruova. He told me with great glee 
how he left the palace of Cotroceni in 
Bucharest by stealth, went down to the 
Danube, and had half his plans per- 
fected before any one outside his immedi- 
ate personal circle knew of it. He 
spoke English as perfectly as a foreigner 
can : it was the first language that 
he learned, and he had a Scotch nurse. 
His dress was always simple in the ex- 
treme, and while to accept the deference 
paid him by the officers who surround 
him seemed second nature to one bred to 
it, he would not receive it from strangers. 



and even disliked to be called by his title. 
On the whole he had the strength of 
character and line sense of honor which 
are the family traits, with a winsome, fas- 
cinating manner added to them. Of his 
abilities as a military commander the 
world has been able to judge. Although 
he was surrounded by competent advisers, 
he was nevertheless entitled to much 
credit for the successes which the Rus- 
sians, in the face of tremendous ob- 
stacles, finally achieved. 

The Russian Imperial family found 
itself in an exceedingly difficult position 
in 1877. Forced by the enthusiastic 
agitators of Moscow toward a war which 
must of necessity be long and bloody, 
they entered into the campaign almost 
with reluctance ; but once engaged in it, 
the Emperor and the Grand Dukes all 
showed their willingness to share the 
perils and many of the privations which 
fell to the lot of the humbler, and wen' 
active from the time of the cross- 
ing into Bulgaria at Simnitza until the 
surrender of Osman at Plevna. Al- 
though the Czar was for much of the 
time in delicate health, he refused to 
quit the field, and remained in fever- 
ridden Biela long after it seemed dan- 
gerous in the extreme for him to stay. 
An engineer officer of the United States 
army who spent, some time in the 
Russian camps informed me that the 
Imperial Majesty of all the Rus- 
sias was more indifferently lodged at 
Biela than an American Colonel would 
be during an expedition on the plains. 
The kitchen of majesty was doubtless 
better served than that of the com- 
mon soldier, but the clouds of dust, 
the draughts of air. the all but intol- 
erable smells, the occasional invading 
scorpion and the innumerable inquisi- 
tive bugs respected Czar no whit more 
than Cossack. 



756 



HUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX. 

General Radetzky. — Russians on tlie March. — Infantry-Men. — Cossacks. — Dragimiroff. — In Camp. — 
Reception <>f the Liberating Russians by the Bulgarians. — Enthusiasm of the Women and ( 'hildren. 
— Welcome by the Monks ami Priests — The Defile beside the Yantra. — The Arrival at Tirnova. — 
Triumphal Procession. — The Grand Duke Nicholas in Church. — The Picturesque City on the 
Yantra. — The Greek Ladies. — Fugitives from Eski Zaghra. 



FINDING that the Eighth corps, 
under command of General Ra- 
detzky, had been ordered to push forward 
as rapidly as possible into the interior of 
Bulgaria, we joined our fortunes to tin- 
staff of this brave fragment of the Rus- 
sian army, — a fragment destined to be 
so cruelly tried, and so severely punished 
in the campaign. The grand ducal staff 
was difficult to find after five o'clock in 
the morning: it vanished, and we were 
compelled either to follow it across fields 
and over by-roads at a venture, or to 
journey with the staff of one of the 
corps. We preferred the latter course. 
Two or three days' marches through a 
rolling country, where the crops were 
already in splendid condition, and where 
a few peasants had gathered courage to 
reappear in the fields, brought us to a 
picturesque region where hills were 
loftier, fields were, if possible, more 
fertile, than in the Danube basin, and 
the men and the women were of nobler 
type than those by the river-side. Long 
before dawn a stout band of Cossacks 
started and rode carefully and diligently 
over the whole route of the day's march. 
They penetrated to all the villages on 
the right or left, pursued roving bands 
of bashi-bazouks if any were to be 
found, and reported by faithful couriers 
to the General commanding the corps. 

By six the infantry was on the march, 
moving forward with slow, deliberate 



step, as if determined to expend as little 
force as possible. Then followed artil- 
lery ; next mih's on miles of wagons, 
for the baggage-train even of a Russian 
army corps or of a battalion is of phe- 
nomenal size in comparison with those 
in other armies. The ambulances and 
a small rear-guard came lumbering 
behind. This marching column was 
usually so long drawn out. so very thin, 
that it would have been cut in two a 
dozen times daily had the Turks had 
any effective regular or irregular cavalry. 
A few horsemen on the brow of a hill at 
right or left sometimes produced an ex- 
cellent effect: the column, in which 
great gaps had been growing for an hour 
or two, came together in solid fashion 
once more. But the Turks never im- 
proved their advantages in a single 
instance. The bashi-bazouks were too 
cowardly: they desired to tight only 
when they were certain of incurring 
small personal risk ; and a dash into the 
middle of a marching column had a 
spice of adventure in it which they did 
not relish. 

With but very short intervals for re- 
pose the troops usually marched until 
noon, and sometimes, if water were not 
readily to be had, until three o'clock. 
The officers said but little, generally 
gave their commands in low voices, and 
used their own discretion in allowing 
rest. If the sun were very hot and no 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



757 



air were stirring — a terrible trial in a 
treeless country — -a halt would be ordered 
and company after company would 
throw itself on the ground with that feel- 
ing of intense relief which only he who 
makes the soldier's effort can know. 
Yet the men were never heavily loaded. 
The officers allowed them to pack their 
knapsacks and blankets into the wagons, 
and to march weighted down by noth- 
ing save their light linen suits and 
their guns. We often found our wagon 
after a halt half filled with knapsacks. 
This at first puzzled us, but we soon 
discovered that the proper plan was 
to stipulate for the carriage of a cer- 
tain number. The others were promptly 
thrown out, and presently we would 
see their owners stealing up with roguish 
smiles to recover them. As soon as the 
village or the river near which we were 
to encamp was reached, the bands began 
to play lively airs, and the soldiers, un- 
less orders had been for some pruden- 
tial reason issued against it, broke into 
singing. Then tents were speedily pitched 
and by four or live o'clock the weary- 
soldier was invited to a hot and substan- 
tial meal. The use of tobacco among 
these troops seemed insignificant as 
compared with the enormous consump- 
tion of that article in the Prussian ami 
French armies. A Prussian Uhlan or a 
foot-soldier has his porcelain pipe or 
cheap cigar in his mouth every moment 
of the day that such indulgence is pos- 
sible; but I have seen the Cossacks sit 
for hours idly singing or basking in the 
sunshine, and evidently anxious for no 
narcotic. "When the Cossack has taken 
too much liquor he is dangerous, and 
sometimes very brutal. It is then thai 
his passion for stealing horses becomes 
developed to an alarming extent. The 
Cossack, when he enters the service of 
the Czar, is bound to furnish his own 



steed, and as it may often become a 
very sorry beast in the course of a cam- 
paign, he is frequently anxious to change 
it for a better one. Put when he is so- 
ber he realizes to the utmost the danger 
which he would incur by any display of 
lawlessness. On the inarch to the Bal- 
kans there were few if any sutlers — or 
"market-tenders," as they are called — 
in the train, and soldiers had no chance 
to replenish their scanty stores of liquor 
at a merchant's counter. 

Near Ivanteha, a pretty village which 
had suffered much from Turkish rapac- 
ity and brutality, the Eighth corps, a 
compact little army of thirty thousand 
men, came upon the high-road leading to 
Tirnova from Rustchuk. At six on a 
breezy summer morning we found the 
veteran Radetzky seated on a rock at the 
summit of one of the tumuli, or obser- 
vation-mounds, to be found everywhere 
in Bulgaria. The long lines of infantry 
weri' slowly defiling below, ami from the 
throats of the men of each battalion as 
it passed the point of observation came 
a loud cry of " Morning ! " in answer to 
the friendly " Morning, brothers ! " of the 
General. Radetzky is a tranquil, easy- 
going commander of the old school ; be 
takes every event in the most matter-of- 
fact way, seems utterly devoid of energy 
until the very last moment, when he 
summons it, does just the right thing, 
and acts with marvellous celerity, as he 
did at the time of Suleiman Pacha's furi- 
ous attack on the positions in the Shipka 
Pass. In appearance he is more like 
a good bourgeois shopkeeper than like 
a general ; stretches himself with the 
utmost unconcern on a carpet in camp ; 
tosses off a dozen huge bumpers of scald- 
ing tea ; smiles at the name of Turk ; 
crosses himself as devoutly as do any of 
the Cossacks, and inspires every one who 
comes into contact with him with genuine 



7.58 



EUROPE IS STORM ASK CALM. 



affection. His chief of staff, Dimitri- 
owski, a veteran of Central Asian cam- 
paigns, bestrode a Kirghese horse, which 
had faithfully borne him in more than 
fifteen thousand miles of campaigning. 
To see these two amiable gentlemen rid- 
ing slowly across fields together one 
would never fancy them to be soldiers ; 
yet both were valiant in the highest de- 
cree at Shipka. The chief of staff was 
dangerously wounded there, while Ra- 
detzky rushed int.) the fight as impul- 
sively as a hoy of twenty, and repelled 
forces largely outnumbering his own. 

From this high mound in the centre 
of a broad plain, where General Radetz- 
ky hail installed himself, we could see 
a thin white line moving slowly along 
the road tun or three miles away, and 
presently the morning sun flashed upon 
the tops of ten thousand polished gun- 
liarrels with dazzling splendor. Out of 
this blinding light suddenly rode, pound- 
ing vigorously on his sturdy charger along 
the hard turnpike, and followed by a 
rakish-looking detachment of Cossacks. 
General Drngimiroff, the hero of the 
fight before Sistova and commander of 
a division of the famous fighting Eighth. 
Dragimiroff is a man of mark in Russia ; 
he is the disciple of the great Suwar- 
row, who made the Russian soldier, 
and who gave him the thousand maxims 

for military conduct, tilled with comn 

sense and manly feeling, which one 
hears in the ranks. Before Suwarrow 
the Russian soldier was a machine: now 
lie is a man. General Dragimiroff is a 
handsome gentleman of elegant deport- 
ment, a little |iast th ■ prime of life; now 
and then, when he puts on his spectacles 
and begins a discussion on tactics, he 
seems the least hit like a school-master. 
hut when he is in the saddle, surrounded 
by officers and rattling toward an en- 
gagement, he looks every inch a soldier. 



He is dark complexioned, of medium 
height ; time has taken tribute of his 
hair, hut has not abated his energy. 
His order of the day for the conduct of 
the troops who were detailed to cross the 
Danube in front of Sistova was filled 
with the same brief, incisive instructions 
which Suwarrow was so fond of giving. 
The most noteworthy thing in this order 
was the command to the soldiers to listen 
to no signal of retreat under any circum- 
stances whatever. The duty plainly al- 
lotted them was to take Sistova and the 
positions dominating the point at which 
flic Russian engineers wished to con- 
struct their bridge — to take and hold 
these points, or to perish in the attempt. 
General Dragimiroff was justly proud of 
his achievement, and as he threw him- 
self from his horse on that lovely July 
morning and scrambled up the mound to 
greet his General, he did not realize that 
weary weeks in hospital were soon to be 
his portion. He was disabled at Shipka 
by a severe leg wound during Suleiman's 
attack. 

At our left, and perhaps two miles dis- 
tant, arose a. steep and thinly wooded 
mountain range, which, according to tin 1 
Bulgarians, afforded shelter to several 
thousands of irregular Mussulman troops, 
who had hidden themselves at the ap- 
proach <>f General Radetzky. It was 
curious to observe the tactics of the Cos- 
sacks in exploring the country near this 
mountain. With our glasses we could 
see them trotting swiftly across the un- 
even held, their lance-points glistening 
in the sun. As they approached a vil- 
lage they gathered into a little knot, to 
separate swiftly again as they found 
nothing to impede their progress. Then 
they came circling and swooping back 
toward the main line, and when they 
were near enough to be clearly observed 
we saw that most of their saddle-bows 



F. VII 01 '■/■; l.V STORM AXD CALM. 



759 



were decorated with chickens or fat 
geese. 

As we moved slowly forward that day 
we saw villages in Haines on our right 
and left. Some of them were burned 
by Mussulmans flying before the wrath 
to come and anxious to leave no stores 
behind for the comfort of the Russians ; 
others were set on fire by Cossacks ; 
other fires still were kindled by Bul- 
garians, to burn Turkish houses as soon 
as the occupants had departed. But no 
enem}' was to be found, and we camped 
that evening in a romantic valley beside 
the Rushitza river, a wide and deep 
stream at this particular place. The 
Turks, with their usual kindness, had 
left a large wooden bridge intact. In- 
fantry and cavalry poured over this, and 
soon found quarters in a pleasant wood, 
while tin' artillery forded the stream. It 
would have been gratifying to see at 
least a few hundred hostile horsemen or 
a little band of infantry wearing the red 
caps of the Turks, but none were visible. 
The Ottomans had encamped on this 
very spot but a short time before, how- 
ever, and it was believed that they could 
not be far away. 

The Grand Duke slept in the tiny vil- 
lage of Palikvast, twenty minutes' gal- 
lop from our camp, that night, and next 
morning prepared for his triumphal entry 
intoTirnova. Our Eighth corps marched 
merrily over the hills and through the 
deep vales until it came to a small town 
just at the entrance of the magnificent 
defile at the opposite end of which Tir- 
nova is situated. Here the inhabitants 
were assembled, dressed in their best 
attire, the women and girls wearing gold 
and silver ornaments, which they bad 
rarely dared to put on under Turkish 
rule. A half-smothered cry of admira- 
tion and joy burst from the hundreds 
assembled from all the country-places 



near by as the staff entered the 
village. Flowers were handed to the 
horsemen. Little maidens modestly ami 
timidly proffered fruit and bread. Tin' 
village priests with tear-stained faces 
stood holding the holy painted images 
of the saints and muttering words of 
praise and consolation. A lusty youth, 
appointed to ring the chimes on a musi- 
cally tuned bar of steel, which had been 
extemporized to serve instead of the bells 
so sternly forbidden by the Turkish op- 
pressors, rang and danced, and laughed 
and wept alternately as he danced and 
rang. The women clasped their children 
to their breasts with fierce and proud ca- 
resses, and cried as if their hearts would 
burst for joy. From the wooden-grated 
window of a room in the khan of the 
hamlet two Turkish prisoners — turbaned 
Mussulmans, who would have been ven- 
erable had it not been for the horrible 
atrocities of which they were convicted 
— glared out upon the arriving (mops 
with a dull, hopeless ferocity. One of 
these ancient ruffians had been twice lib- 
erated on account of his great age, but 
the second time he fell into an uncontrol- 
lable fury, spat upon the ground, and, 
drawing his knife, prepared to run 
amuck among the villagers, when he was 
rearrested. The ignoble miscreant had 
murdered several innocent children in 
the course of his worthless life. He and 
his companion were hanged during our 
stay in Tirnova. 

The Russian infantry-men, inarching 
stoutly by to the music of inspiring 
strains, such as Bulgarians had never 
heard before, seemed to astonish the ig- 
norant villagers beyond measure. They 
constantly inquired for "Alexander," 
the beloved name representing in their 
minds the deliverance. The Cossacks 
seemed inspired on this occasion : they 
had caught the spirit of delirious joy 



7(50 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

which prevailed among the Bulgarians, house, which an officer of the advance- 

and as a regiment of the brave fellows guard had hastily chosen lor General 

came slowly through the town, beating Radetzky's head-quarters. Behind us 

time with wild gestures to their own the street was speedily filled with an 

wilder song, which swelled and swelled immense detachment of cavalry, which 

in volume until the narrow valley seemed had come in by another road and 

too small to contain it, enthusiasm lost was pushing straight on to the 

all bounds. Many women threw them- Balkans. So we sat for an hour 

selves, sobbing hysterically, on the on our horses watching this human 

ground, hiding their faces, while their lit- torrent as it swept by, and wondering 

tie children tugged at their skirts. Mean- how many of the thousands of horsemen 

time fighting was in progress not would ever see Russia again. 
far away. A Cossack captain showed At Tirnova, as at the little village, the 

us a goodly store of richly mounted arms cry was for " Alexander." People did 

and saddles, bridles and cloths worked not. seem to know who Grand Duke 

with gold, brought in from a village Nicholas was; they only knew that 

twenty miles distant, where the Turkish after an absurdly ineffectual resistance 

peasants had made a bold stand against the Turk had lied and the Russian de- 

twice their number of Cossacks. Only liverer had coin 1 in his place. And 

the I lii-eat that the town would be burned what joy bubbled and frothed in laughter 

could induce the villagers to give up and song or evanesced in tears as the 

their arms. freed people promenaded the crooked 

We rode on through the mighty defile avenues, arm in arm, crying " Hurrah ! " 

beside the beautiful Yantia to Tirnova, as if they weie not used to doing it but 

the ancient capital of tin' Bulgarian thought it. a good accomplishment to 

kings, and positively the most pictu- acquire! 

resque town that 1 have ever seen. We When the street was once more pass- 
left the troops behind, and galloped able we hastened to the high walls over- 
along a narrow road where two hundred looking the valley to observe the entry 
men might have held the pass against of the Grand Duke and his staff . Trav- 
ten thousand. That the Turks should ersing the town, and now and then 
ever have been foolish enough to yield following the Cossacks down steep 
this defile without the defence which avenues, where one's neck was in immi- 
it was so easy to make seems incredible, nent danger, then climbing a street set 
( )n either hand, perched high among the upon the outermost edge of a very preci- 
rocks, is a monastery, from which the pice, we came to a plateau whence we 
old and young monks had come down could see a long procession of horsemen 

to gieet iis. Generals and minor officers winding through the sunlit valley, 

doffed their hats and bent reverently and finally pausing before a company of 

for the monkish benediction, then priests, who bore them the bread and 

passed on. crossing themselves. Soon salt of hospitality and the divine sym- 

we saw the root' of a mosque glittering hols, that the\ might kiss them. The 

in the Sun, and clambering up a long and procession made its way as best it could 

stony ascent, and clattering through the to the principal church, where Nicholas, 

narrow and dirty streets, we made our hand on sword, stood for half an hour 

way to a many-gabled, quaintly -balconied listening to the chants of the priests and 



EUROPE IX STORM A XI) CALM. 



761 



the somewhat monotonous music of the 
choir-boys. In this church we caught 
sight of Bulgarian beauty, which unsym- 
pathetic Hungarians and sneering Rou- 
manians had taught us to consider a 
myth. Dark-eyed, dark-haired girls 
crowded toward the altar to see the 
deliverer, bowed their pretty heads rev- 
erently when he kissed the crucifix, and 
shot bewitching glances at the young 
officers, who had donned their most brill- 
iant uniforms for this memorable occa- 
sion. In single file the Duke, his aides- 
de-camp and half a hundred officers 
passed out of the town to a hill a short 
distance beyond it, where, in a hand- 
some suburban villa, the ducal head- 
quarters were established. Tin' plain 
near by was white with tents, and col- 
umns of men filled the only two roads 
in the vicinity. Had the Grand Duke 
dreamed that at that moment Osman 
Pasha was moving toward Plevna lie 
would have considered his own arrival 
in Tirnova as hazardous. Put in igno- 
rance of any such movement every one 
was ready to declare that, as far as 
Philippopolis or Sofia, the war would be 
nothing but a 'promenade militaire. 

From the plain where the Russians were 
encamped, Tirnova appeared rather like 
a faery city risen at the command of an 
enchanter than like a town built by 
human hands. The lowest range of 
dwellings is placed on a bluff above the 
Yantra river, and the highest on a high 
pinnacle of the lofty gorge. The com- 
binations of color, of form, are infinite: 
one never tires of gazing at the streets of 
stairs, down which the Cossacks ride 
on horseback fearlessly ; at the masses 
of slated idol's, from which the inhabi- 
tants of neighboring houses carry on 
animated conversations in high-pitched 
voices; at the balconies, latticed or 
open, from which one can look dowu 



hundreds of feet into yellow water, or 
upon odorous gardens, where the richest 
blossoms flourish. A house in Tirnova 
appears to have no foundation; it is in 
some mysterious manner inextricably 
connected with those above and those 
below it, and its cellars and sub-cellars 
seem to extend into the bowels of the 
earth. The houses of well-to-do citizens 
are ample, even vast; the court-yards 
are surrounded by veritable parapets 
and ramparts. The interior furnishing 
is simple and Oriental : divans, low and 
covered with coarse carpets, arc more 
common than beds; and in the recess 
of a great window, so placed as to catch 
the faintest sigh of the breeze, one 
usually finds carpets and cushions form- 
ing couches, where the rich Bulgarian 
lakes his siesta when the sun is hot. 
The Greek families in Tirnova are 
numerous, and the Greek ladies are 
renowned for their beauty. The Bul- 
garian peasant women are stately, and 
possess a quiet dignity which has a 
certain charm. They talk but little: 
a bevy of girls drawing water at a foun- 
tain are as silent as if at a funeral. 
They bear pain with great fortitude. 

We had an excellent opportunity to 
observe this trait in their characters 
when the fugitives from Roumelia came 
crowding through the Nhipka Pass and 
down the foot-hills of the Balkans to 
Tirnova. For days the streets were 
tilled with half-starved women and girls, 
most of whom had lost husbands, 
brothers, or protectors in the dreadful 
massacres in and around Kski Zaghra, 
and some of whom had been wounded ; 
but none complained aloud, and all bore 
their troubles with a, patient resignation 
which was extremely touching. They 
cannot control themselves in joy so well 
as in pain. — probably because they 
have had in their lives much more of the 



762 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



latter than of (lie former. Women who 
have seen their children wrested from 
their arms by merciless and fanatical 
oppressors, and buried alive, can endure 

almost anything. The women of Loft- 
scha who escaped from the massacre 
with which the troops of Osman Pasha 
whetted their swords wore upon their 
faces a, settled expression of terror which 
was awful to witness. We saw hun- 



dreds of these poor creatures on the 
Selvi road a few days after their escape. 
Old and young alike seemed to have 
constantly before them the memory of a 
dread vision which could only pass 
away with death. They moved about 
listlessly : life no longer appeared real 
to them. It is not astonishing, for the_y 
had been far down into the Valley of the 
Shadow. 



EUROPE IN STORM A AD CALM. 



763 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN. 

Previous Insurrection in Bulgaria. — A llctrospcct. — Servia's A'ul to Bulgaria. — Russian Agents. — The 
Triple Alliance. — Rustchuk, Its Defence— Turkish Transports. — The Road to the Balkans.— 
Gabrova. — Turkish Time. — Bulgarian Schools and their varying Fortunes. — Renegades.— The 
Basses of the Balkans. — Prince TserteletT. — The Shipka Pass. — Mount St. Nicholas. — Suleiman 
Pasha and Radctzky. 



BULGARIA'S first insurrectionary 
movement, in 1802, not only as- 
tonished the Turks I nit greatly alarmed 
many civilized powers, who saw the 
danger of a general European war in 
this uprising of a people supposed to 
be thoroughly subjugated. The unhappy 
Bulgarians had been groaning under the 
Ottoman yoke so long, and seemed so 
powerless to help themselves, that even 
their kindred had begun to despise their 
seeming lack of courage. Nearly five 
hundred years had passed since the 
fertile plains at the slopes of (he Balkans 
and the fat fields beside the Danube had 
fallen into Turkish hands ; yet during 
that long period the oppressed Slavs had 
done little or nothing to renew their 
vanquished glories or to justify their 
right to an independent existence. 
From the time of the seizure of Con- 
stantinople, in 1453, by the terrible 
Mohammed II., until the middle of the 
nineteenth century, the Turk encoun- 
tered no resistance from the natives of 
the land which he had invaded. Even 
the Austrians had done something 
toward the liberation of the Slavs ; the 
Bulgarians had done nothing. But at 
last the breeze of revolution passed over 
the prostrate people, and awoke them, 
as by enchantment, from their lethargy 
of ages. 

Scrvia had been inspired to resistance 
by the contemplation of Austria's many 



struggles with the Ottoman power on 
the banks of the Save, and by means of 
brilliant and tremendous popular efforts 
from 1800 until 1860 had succeeded in 
winning from the Porte an unwilling and 
imperfect recognition of her undoubted 
rights. In 18.") 1 the Bulgarians, weighed 
down by the taxation of a merciless and 
alien government, made a weak attempt 
to revolt, but their crude conspiracies 
were crushed beneath the bloody heels 
of pashas and their brutal soldiers. At 
last, however, the decisive moment came, 
and the league known as " Young Bul- 
garia" was formed. The Servians gave 
it all the aid that they could without ex- 
posing themselves to the charge of par- 
ticipation in it, and the Roumanian 
authorities permitted it to hold meetings 
undisturbed in Bucharest. The Rus- 
sians were not backward in expressing 
their sympathies for their opi re&sed 
Christian brethren, and promised them 
arms and money. The noted Midhat 
Pasha, who afterward became a fugitive 
from his own country, was then governor 
of Bulgaria. He speedily discovered 
the conspiracy, and rightly attributed 
its origin to Servian influence. As he 
was known to be cruel and bloody- 
minded, nearly all the young men in 
Bulgaria fled into neighboring States; 
but Midhat succeeded in securing fifty- 
four, who were carried in chains to 
Rustchuk. Ten were hanged ; the rest 



7(34 EUROPE llf STORM AND CALM. 

were exiled. Midhat pretended to be sians were indignant at the manner in 
moderate anil clement, and endeavored which the Turks treated their subjects; 
to induce the fugitives to return ; but that some day there would be a great 
they with one accord manifested a war for Christian liberation ; that pcr- 
singular indisposition to venture into his haps the powerful, although perturbed, 
clutches. Very shortly afterward the rule of the Bulgarian Czars might be re- 
hypocritical Midhat showed his true vived ; and that unceasing labor to pro- 
colors by taking violently from an vide money and crops for the consump- 
Austrian steamer at Rustchuk two per- tion of rapacious tax-gatherers was not 
sons furnished respectively with Servian the chief end of man. Sometimes a 
and Roumanian passports, but who had Russian agent, who, despising the Turk, 
been denounced to him as agents of the hardly took the trouble to disguise him- 
" Young Bulgaria" committees, and self, fanned the feeble flame in the 
causing them to be shot. This arbitrary peasant's breast, or aroused a vague en- 
aet aroused the indignation of Europe, thusiasm in the mind of the dull village 
and the zealous Midhat was recalled priest, by hinting al "crusades" to come, 
from his post, the Porte consoling him, Russians were familiar figures to the 
nevertheless, with the announcement Mussulmans, who knew very well that 
that he was " invited to higher func- Muscovite officers had as early as 1840 
tions." studied the great routes from Rustchuk 

In June of 1SG8 a formidable cxpedi- to Adrianople, and from Widdin to 

tion of insurgents was ready to enter Philippopolis, with especial view to the 

Bulgaria, when the assassination of the march of numerous army corps, and had 

reigning prince in Scrvia and the conse- carefully jotted down on war maps the 

quent confusion into which that province names of even the most insignificant 

was llvown destroyed the needed unity villages. The Austrian consuls sympa- 

of movement. The General appointed thized openly with Bulgarian sufferers, 

to the regency of Scrvia during the and many a Turk spat upon the ground 

minority of young Prince Milan was as he saw the representatives of Francis 

unwilling to risk anything by ailing the Joseph passing to and fro. Those people 

Bulgarians Despite this discourage- who to-day wonder at the " triple alli- 

iiient, an heroic little baud of one bun- ance " have only to review the history of 

dred and fifty youths entered Bulgaria the century to discover that after 1S48 

an 1 marched toward the Balkans, trying Austria ceased to afford the Turks the 

to arouse the timid peasantry. After poor consolation of moral support, and 

two or three sharp fights these young was no longer an obstacle to the plans 

martyrs to the cause of liberty were sur- of Russia for Bulgarian redemption, 

rounded in the mountains not far from The Austrians had been compelled in 

the old town of Gabrova, and nobly per- times past to intervene in Bosnia for the 

ished to a man, not one of them consent- protection of Christians ; and they quite 

ing to lav down his anus. understood the motives which led Russia 

Then ensued another series of years to make gigantic preparations for a war 

of apparent inaction. But the Bulgarian which might be long postponed, but 

peasant was beginning to think, to hope, which could not be averted, 
to dream, of independence. lie heard Purely local insurrections are easily 

vaguely that the Austrians and the Pus- suppressed in a country where the most 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CM. '!. 



7C,. r ) 



horrible punishments may be inflicted 
without mercy. The Turks soon dis- 
covered that the Bulgarians had awakened 
into new life, and they forthwith began 
a reign of terror. The tax-gatherer was 
more exacting than before ; innocent 
people were murdered on the pretext 
that they were plotting against the gov- 
ernment ; and the wretched Slavs' cup 
of misery was full to running over, when 
a new sorrow came to them in the arrival 
of large bands of marauding and lawless 
Circassians, encouraged by the Porte to 
settle in Bulgaria, probably because it 
was expected that they would overawe 
the peasantry and spread a healthy fear 
throughout the towns. The outrages 
committed by these Mussulman Circas- 
sians — fiends in human form — seem in- 
credible when one hears them recited. 
The English Conservatives, when they 
heard of them, steadily refused to believe 
them, and to this day find it vastly 
amusing to laugh at the phrase, " Bul- 
garian atrocity.'' 

Despite Circassians, regular Turkish 
troops, bashi-bazouks, and all the forces 
at the disposition of the Sultan, the in- 
surrectionary symptoms of 1875—76 were 
fated to appear, and many Bulgarian 
notables were compromised. With what 
sanguinary tyranny these symptoms were 
put down, the unimpeachable testimony 
of Mr. Schuyler, Mr. MacGahan, and 
numerous other gentlemen lias ac- 
quainted the world. The Circassians 
who violated maidens, and slew and 
burned innocent babes by hundreds at 
Batak, were akin to the murderers who, 
under Suleiman Pacha, after the Russian 
retreat from Eski Zaghra in 1M77, 
slaughtered ten thousand innocent peas- 
ants. The assassins who burned scores 
of villages and dashed out the brains of 
helpless old men in the districts around 
Selvi and Gabrova after the last insur- 



rection was put down were the brethren 
of the followers of Osman Pasha, who 
buried little children alive at Loftscha 
and mutilated wounded men while tin' 
breath was still in them ; as also of the 
Kurds, who, at Shipka and Plevna, cut off 
the heads of gasping soldiers, — an act 
of barbarism which in this century has 
been heretofore heard of only in Central 
Asia, or among the savages on the 
Ashantee coast. 

Rustchuk, on the Danube, is an inter- 
esting although not a very pleasant place. 
I was there two days before the Russians 
crossed the Pruth, and was struck with 
the general air of decay and neglect in 
all the government buildings at the wa- 
terside. On the hill to the right as we 
came down the river I saw a huge camp, 
fortified and filled with men. Two 
months later, from the Roumanian side 
of the stream. I watched this same camp, 
and from the advanced Russian batteries 
I could see the Turkish soldiers peace- 
fully manoeuvring, as if the Muscovite 
were a thousand miles away, although a 
hurtling piece of iron soaring across the 
Danube to strike among the Moslems 
reminded them that the enemy was near 
at hand. "When the war was first begun it 
was expected that a crossing might be at- 
tempted at Rustchuk. The Roumanians, 
who had not then found out their own 
strength, quaked as they thought of an 
incursion by yellow-dyed barbarians 
from Asia, and 1 dare say that the Turks 
were uneasy when they thought of Cos- 
sacks cantering through the streets of 
Rustchuk. As it happened the Turks 
were able to do little or nothing to check 
the advance of Russian troops by 
means of their heavy guns on the hills of 
Rustchuk. The railway from Bucharest 
brought troops to a station called Fro- 
tesli, quite out of reach of the Turkish 
cannon, and thence they took up their 



7()ti EUROPE 1\ STORM AND CALM. 

march ;it sonic little distance from the bered list of them, and indemnity was 
Danube's hanks as far as Simnitza, required of the Turkish government 
where they crossed into Bulgaria. Laud- before peace was concluded. Omar Pasha 
ward, the Turks defended Rustchuk made Rustehuk celebrated in 1854 bv 
well, and after nine months of fighting the valiant and energetic manner in 
no one of the fortresses composing the which he crossed the Danube from that 
famous quadrilateral was yet taken. town with forty-five thousand men, after 
On the whole, Rustchuk disappointed having driven the Russians from an 
me. I felt as if I had a right to expect island where they were strongly en- 
more of Oriental atmosphere in this, the trenched. 

liist Turkish town I had set foot in. The From Rustchuk a road which must be 
railway with its noisy locomotives of- accounted good in a country where there 
fended me : it savored too much of West- are few decent highways leads through 
ern Europe; but the dark-faced, scowling Tirnova and Gabrova to the Shipka Pass, 
men standing sleepily on the barges at in the Balkans, and across the moun- 
the wharves, brandishing bright cans tains to the rose-embowered villages of 
solemnly, as if in feeble protest at the Roumelia, and to Adrianople. Gabrova 
Russian advance, which they knew is as picturesque as Rustchuk is corn- 
would soon begin floundering in Rouma- monplace. From Tirnova the road to 
nian mud, were certainly as unlike 1 Eu- the Balkans leads across some mighty 
ro| icans as human beings could well be. hills, from whose summits one catches 
They seemed perfectly willing to pass glimpses of beautifully cultivated vales 
their lives in listless and drowsy enjoy- below. The villages are few and unin- 
ment of the sunshine and of the murmur viting: the khans are sometimes entirely 
of the great current. They did not even deserted, sometimes frequented by bul- 
manifest the slightest enthusiasm when locks, sheep, and goats in such numbers 
a little fleet of transports, bringing sol- that one prefers to sleep in the opeu air 
diers for Widdiu from Constantinople, rather than to undergo their companion- 
passed merrily up stream with blood-red ship. AtGabrova, whoever mounted to 
crescents on their flags and with white- the principal hall of the khan was com- 
robcil, sallow-faced Imaums solemnly pelled to pass through an incomparably 

parading : mg the soldiers squatted filthy stable, and to dispute passage with 

cross-legged ou the decks. Verily, a rak- an elderly ram who occupied the lower 

ish crew was to be found abroad on the step of the stairs during the heat of the 

Danube in those few days before the day as well as at night, and who fre- 

Russians arrived in Lower Roumania. queutly was little disposed to disturb him- 

Many a quaint, old-fashioned Turkish self for strangers. But the private houses 

ship, looking like a galley of the tit'- of the better class iu Gabrova are cleanly, 

teenth century, and painted in glaring and sonic of them make pretensions to 

colors, was worked over to the Rou- elegance. The town rambles alone- the 

manian shore in the night, and many a. banks of the Yantra, which there brawls 

peaceful shepherd's cottage was invaded ami tollies over broad, Hat stones or 

by murderous Circassians. The murders bounds down into deep pools at the 

and robberies committed in this manner base of large, black rocks; and some 

were so numerous that the Roumanian of the cottages appear to spring from 

minister of foreign affairs kept a imm- the very bosom of the stream. Stone 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



767 



bridges span the water here and there, 
and clusters of houses with queer balco- 
nies and misshapen windows are tenanted 
by industrious artisans, who labor all 
day at the preparation of textile fabrics, 
for which Gabrova is famous. At night 
the rumbling of dozens of water-wheels 
is heard. Almost every house is so placed 
as to enable its inhabitants to avail them- 
selves of a ■•water-privilege." Every 
morning a long procession of Gabrova's 
prettiest maidens arrives at the Yantra, 
each girl loaded with the family wash- 
ing. The beauties tuck up their skirts 
and proceed to their work in the hearti 
est manner. Strangely enough, they arc 
silent at their toil. I found this people 
in the neighborhood of the Balkans curi- 
ously devoid of animation on occasions 
when one would naturally expect it. In 
a market-place the women never chatted, 
and tlie men seemed to joke in a weary, 
faint-hearted fashion. The same num- 
ber of persons in France or Spain would 
have made the heavens ring When 
the prisoners were brought down from 
the Shipka 1'ass into Gabrova, and, with 
their hands tied, were marched over one 
of the bridges, with Bulgarians guarding 
them, there was no murmur either of 
exultation or execratiou among the Ga- 
brovans. Feeling was deep, but audible 
expression of it was lacking. 

The Bulgarians were always largely in 
the majority in this town of twelve or 
thirteen hundred houses, and the Turks 
hail during the last two generations ac- 
corded it certain rights, although they 
had felt constrained to burn it no longer 
ago than 1798. Gabrova. by special 
clemency of the Grand Turk, was al- 
lowed bells in its churches, and facili- 
ties lor founding schools were given the 
wealthy inhabitants. The happy Chris- 
tians had of course placed bells wher- 
ever there was the slightest pretext for 



doing so ; and nothing was more per- 
plexing to me than to hear a bevy of 
them ringing in the small hours of the 
night. Turkish time is three hours faster 
than that of Western Europe ; and I have 
been frequently awakened by a peal of 
bells sounding six, to find no one stirring 
in the town, and to hear nothing save the 
harmonious hum of distant water-wheels 
or the purling of the Yantra. 

But by four o'clock folk were astir. I 
do not speak of the Russian soldiers, who 
were coming and going at all imaginable 
times. It seemed as if now and then they 
were anxious to make their lines seem 
stronger than they were by going round 
and round, as supernumeraries do on the 
stage. But the towns-people came out a 
very long time before the sun did. The 
men, who seemed to sleep in their coarse 
black caps, laid them off as they came 
to the stone fountains, where they washed 
their hands and faces. No sooner had 
they shaken the water well about them 
than they lighted cigarettes and began 
talking listlessly. Presently they were 
compelled to make way for a crowd of 
bare-limbed girls, each bearing heavy 
buckets balanced on the ends of a slen- 
der pole ; then matrons with their ket- 
tles appeared ; and children were brought 
out and treated to vigorous duckings. 
The horses came next, and refreshed 
themselves leisurely while their guardians 
relighted innumerable cigarettes and 
lazily crossed their legs. Most of the 
artisan class, in appearance lazy, are 
really very industrious, and are seated at 
their looms or benches before daylight. 
Some of the streets of Gabrova are filled 
with small shops in which clay floors and 
grimy benches are the only embellish- 
ments. These are the workshops of the 
artificers in gold and silver, who have 
always made the interiors of their estab- 
lishments as poor and uninviting as pos- 



7fi« 



EUROI'E IN STORM AND CALM. 



sible, in hopes that they might escape 
the rapacity of the Turk. Many of the 
goldsmiths buried all their really beau- 
tiful stock at the beginning of the war ; 
and their only fear was that if the Turks 
should beat the Russians and reenter 
Gabrova, they might try to force the 
Christians by torture to tell where their 
treasures were hidden. 

Bulgaria proper, with a population of 
three million one hundred thousand in- 
habitants, of whom only four hundred 
thousand were Mussulmans, had not a 
single school which could be called na- 
tional as late as 183.5. In the Danubian 
region there were a few schools where 
the Greek language was taught, but it 
was not until the principal citizens of 
Gabrova took the initiative that the Bul- 
garian school system was introduced. 
Gabrova has kept the lead which it so 
gallantly took on that occasion, and in 
1871 had eight scl Is with fifteen hun- 
dred pupils. The teachers had a nar- 
row escape from a cruel fate not very 
long ago ; and the story of the cause 
which led to then' arrest and imprison- 
ment illustrates admirably the incurable 
negligence and bad faith of the Turks 
in the administration of their conquered 
provinces. The central government bad 
grudgingly consented to establish a postal 
service, as the commercial people of 
Gabrova asserted that it would make 
affairs much better; but the Turk ap- 
pointed to go and come witli the mail 
spent bis hours in inglorious ease, lolling 
on the divan of a cctfi and smoking his 
pipe. This moved one of the teachers 
to reproach him bitterly, and to threaten 
him with exposure if he did not mend 
his ways. The Turk at. once complained 
to the Tcaimakam, the local Turkish au- 
thority, that the Bulgarian teachers were 
all connected with the insurrectionary 
league, and that they were engaged in 



correspondence against the government. 
The pasha of Tirnova was notified, and 
at once ordered the closing of the Ga- 
brova schools and the imprisonment of 
the instructors. It was only after long 
incarceration and great difficulties that 
the Bulgarian community succeeded in 
explaining matters. The offending mail- 
carrier was not even reprimanded by the 
Turkish officials. 

In the vicinity of Gabrova are numer- 
ous villages inhabited by the Pomatzy 
("renegades"), as they are called by 
the Christians. These worthies arc de- 
scended from Bulgarians who embraced 
Mohammedanism because of some real 
or fancied slight of their patriarch. They 
are divided broadly into two classes — 
dangerous fanatics, who were especially 
troublesome during the Russian war, 
and mild Islamites, supposed still to 
have a weakness for Christianity. 
The villages of the Pomatzy are much 
like those of their Christian brethren, 
except that minarets abound in them, and 
that their neighborhood is usually haunted 
by brigands. The bashi-bazouks found 
refuge in the hamlets of the fanatical 
Pomatzy when they were hotly pursued 
by Radetzky's Cossacks, and if cornered 
speedily appeared in the guise of quiet 
and peace-loving farmers. 

The Balkans were so frequently men- 
tioned in thi' course of the Russian 
campaign in Turkey in Europe as a ter- 
rible obstacle to progress that even the 
Muscovites themselves had begun to be- 
lieve great sacrifices would be uecessan 
in order to cross them. Each of the sev- 
enteen practicable passes in this roman- 
tic and beautiful chain of mountains had 
been carefully studied at intervals in the 
lasl fifty years by Russian officers; and 
it was because the strength of the forti- 
fied positions in the Shipka Pass was 
well known that General Gourko, when 



EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 



769 



he made his famous raid into Roumelia, 
preferred to work his way through a defile 
much less known and offering many more, 
natural obstacles. Prince Tserteleff, 
the amiable and able young diplomat, 
who was charged witli Russian inter- 
ests at Constantinople for a time, and 
who accompanied General Ignatieff on 
his tour to the principal European capi- 
tals just before war broke out, lias the 
glory of having explored and recom- 
mended the passage through which 
Gourko made his raid, and after pass- 
ing which be was enabled to fall upon 
the rear of the Turkish positions at 
Shipka. The prince, who was a very 
young man, disguised himself as a Bul- 
garian peasant and went ahead, at the 
risk of his life, to make sure both that 
the route w r as available and that the 
Turks did not discover the movements 
of Gourko's force. The adventure was 
completely successful. Here and there 
the little army came upon narrow paths, 
along which it was almost impossible 
to drag artillery, and now and then a 
cannon toppled into the abyss. But 
after severe struggle the column 
emerged on the fertile plains, and, had 
it been properly supported, would have 
carried consternation to the gates of 
Adrianople in less than six weeks. 

It is but a short ride from Gabrova to 
the picturesque heights where the fa- 
mous .Shipka Pass commences, and from 
thence a rough road leads around the 
bases of frowning summits and up hills 
until an elevation of a little less than 
five thousand feet is reached. The 
Turks had crowned every peak dominat- 
ing the road with well-built redoubts, 
and had stocked them with immense 
quantities of provisions and ammunition. 
All these stores, when the Mussulmans 
found themselves assaulted in front and 
rear, fell into Russian hands. It is said 



that the pasha commanding the troops 
at one point was so alarmed at what he 
believed was a Russian advance from 
all sides that he put spurs to his horse 
and galloped away without even order- 
ing bis men to retreat. 

Mount St. Nicholas, a vast irregular 
pyramid, rises abruptly from among the 
rolling hills, and seems an impregnable 
position. The Russians insisted that 
once in it the Turks could never get 
them out ; and at one time, when it 
was feared that some of Osman Pasha's 
troops would move forward from Loft- 
scha and endeavor to crush the feeble 
forces at Gabrova, Prince Mirsky, of 
the Eighth corps, had orders to retire 
to Shipka, and, shutting himself and 
his men up in the redoubts, to await 
reinforcements. It is as incomprehen- 
sible that the Turks should have aban- 
doned the eight splendid positions in the 
Shipka Pass as that they should have 
made no attempt to defend the defiles of 
the Yantra, near Tirnova, — positions 
where armed peasants might have 
checked the advance of the flower of 
European armies. 

A superb surprise awaits the weary 
horseman as he approaches the top of 
the pass. Turning to glance occasion- 
all}' behind him he sees only ranges of 
dull hills clad in monotonous green, or 
perhaps fields of waving grain ; but, 
looking forward, he suddenly has spread 
before him the ample panorama of ex- 
quisite Thrace, one of the gardens of the 
world, — a land where millions of roses 
distil their subtle perfumes upon the air, 
and where villages are embowered in 
vines and flowers. Shipka means "wild 
rose," and Shipka village, lying a long 
way down the descent on the Roumelian 
side, justifies its name. Yet here in this 
loveliest region, where nature seems to 
have lavished comfort upon man, in July 



770 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



of 1877 such horrors were enacted although they assaulted ferociously, 

that the stoutest heart quails even they could not move the veteran 

at their reci- Radetzky from 

tal. Suleiman his tracks. He 
Pacha the Cruel J-gL drank his scald- 
swept with the ^ .- ing tea morn- 
besom of des- J£§ \ \&j^s^~~ v ' u §i noon, and 
tr notion all *;-". f 't. >, ' niilht, and held 
those sections tfi. f * ¥f'/, . ''/• \ on valiantly 
from which the ^'■^^?"i« «£JL against death 
Russians were ii2§fil§ffiFl^ "'^^■ ; 'h : ^m^ '""' ''" ' lllil 
forced hastily to ^MKL^^S^T^ faffl^^ until ftourko 
retire when the ,*';' > ^'"-'^^"S^^E*®* 1 v^VxTt ' crossed the Bal- 
advance was ar- v< : < — W4^ jSp' v ^i^-C^'V kans once more 
rested by the '''^j^^f & V^PP J^^fc . ''. v P asses quite 

■ ■in is appari I *j|f - '^hH£ .W, ' \ff :iS dilJicult as 

tion of Osman / S~ -i^m^ <§!» that which served 

and his soldiers ; '' V \^§f£i ' "> m "" the 

at Plevna and -%; ^v-^^to m ' st occasion. 

Loftscha. Sulei- ^ J* !$» Then Radetzky 

man, fresh from "* rose, and drove 

the massacre of the Turks before 

women and Bulgarians i.ekending a mountain pass. ||im ,, mvn ; nto 

babes, threw himself into the gorges Roumelia, where they were stopped 

of Shipka, and sent his butchers by Russian troops and were compelled 
to be butchered in their turn ; but, to surrender. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



771 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT. 

The Mutilation of the Russian "Wounded. — A Convent for Women near Gabrova, and Bulgarian 
Monasteries. — Through the Balkans. — Kezanhk. — Rose Culture and the Rose Gardens. — 
Eski Zaghra and the .Massacre. — The Malice of Suleiman Pasha. — The Vengeance of the Agas. 
— The Bulgarian Army. — The National Life of the Bulgarians. 



TT^HK story of the horrible mutilation 
-L of the Russian wounded in the 
Shipka Pass is pretty widely known, hut 
an incident connected with it will serve 
to show what fierce pride some of the 
Asiatics took in their fiendish perform- 
ance. When the Russians occupied the 
positions which the Turks had abandoned 
late in July they found a number of 
bodies of both soldiers and officers dis- 
membered and treated in the must shock- 
ing manner. Arms, legs, heads were 
scattered about, and there was abundant 
proof that some of the wounded had 
been beheaded while living. Among the 
Turkish prisoners was a certain detach- 
ment of Kurds, who were asked if they 
could throw any light on the subject of 
the mutilations. One or two denied till 
knowledge of it, but at last a soldier 
stepped out of the ranks and with rude 
joy announced that he had cut olf one 
or two heads ; that most of his comrades 
hod done the same tiling, or would have 
had occasion offered ; and that he and 
others carried Russian heads, mounted 
on sticks, to the pasha, who made no 
remark whatever. Prince Mirsky in- 
formed me that on the day when these 
mutilated bodies were buried, and when 
the indignation against the Turks must 
necessarily have been very great among 
the rank and tile, he saw Turkish 
wounded receiving most careful and 
patient attention at the hands of Rus- 
sian infantry-men not a hundred rods 



from the spot where the burial took 
place. 

On the slope, and not far from Ga- 
brova, is a convent for women, where 
the nuns lead a life quite different from 
the self-sacrificing existence of the Cath- 
olic devotee. They are at liberty to re- 
ceive whom they please, to engage in 
any industry which suits them, and to 
go into the world whenever they like. 
But a broad distinction must be made 
between these convents and those in 
Roumania, which are in many respects 
a disgrace to the Church under whose 
patronage they are established. 

It has been remarked that the Rus- 
sians at first chose comparatively un- 
frequented and difficult passes in the 
Balkain chain, in order that they might 
surprise the enemy. But for the passage 
of the main army of occupation after the 
Turks were pushed back there were 
numerous good roads besides that by 
Shipka. One leads over the Travno- 
lialkan, as it is called, to routes which 
communicate with Kezanlik ; another, by 
which Osman Pasha had hoped, in case of 
disaster, to retire from Plevna and Loft- 
seha with his army, leads through the Bal- 
kan range by Trojan and Kalofer. This 
last-named pass is practicable only in a 
relative sense. The bones of horses that 
have succumbed by the way strew the 
sides of the bridle-paths. The convent of 
Trojan, one of the most venerated of Bul- 
garian shrines, is accessible from the pass. 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



There forty or fifty monks live in ease 
and comfort, and cultivate fields for miles 
around, — fields which j ield fat reve- 
nues. These Oriental monks thoroughly 
understand good living: their cells 
are fitted up with divans and carpets; 
they regale themselves with coffee and 
liquors ; and on the walls hang dozens 
of stout weapons, which are used in 
repelling the assaults of enterprising 
brigands or in securing game for the 
monastic larder. 

The most imposing and delightful part 
of the route through the Balkans by Tro- 
jan and Kalofer is the passage of the 
Rosolita, nearly six thousand feet above 
the level of the sea. Vast peaks, around 
which eagles hover, looking down with 
curiosity upon the adventurous travel- 
ler, rise into the air; below are yawning 
precipices, over whose edges one can see 
yet other peaks with their tops wreathed 
in mist. The passes which lead out of 
Servia across the Balkans into Bulgaria 
have from time immemorial been infest- 
ed with brigands, and the guard-houses 
are surrounded by little cemeteries, which 
contain the remains of assassinated trav- 
ellers. Both the Servian and the Turk- 
ish governments pretended to keep strong 
military forces on these roads for the 
protection of the innocent, but the bashi- 
ba/.oiiks representing Turkey were gen- 
erallv in league with the brigands, or 
with trifling temptations were capable of 
crime on their own account. 

Kezanlik, through which the tide of 
war swept rudely, lies in a sweet vale 
not far below the village of Shipka. 
On every side it is surrounded by ear- 
dens in which the delicate and beautiful 
rose of Damascus is cultivated expressly 
for the perfumes to be distilled from it. 
On this side of the Balkans the villages 
have a more decidedly Turkish aspect 
than those between Gabrova and the 



Danube ; the houses are painted in 
tender colors, which harmonize delieious- 
ly with the landscape ; and nearly every 
residence, rich or poor, has a little 
pleasaunce-ground attached to it, in 
which vines, rosebushes ami fruit trees 
make a very agreeable shade. The 
many minarets, the latticed cages which 
denote "harems" in the Turkish quar- 
ter, the market-places, with their fantas- 
tical ranges of low wooden shops, — all 
remind one of the far Orient. Kezanlik 
was rich before the return of the Turks 
to it after Gourko's retreat, and many 
of the young Bulgarians engaged in 
commerce arc men of intelligence and 
refinement. In conversation with one 
of them who was preparing to remove 
his merchandise by way of Bucharest 
to Vienna. I was surprised to hear him 
say that the " Bulgarian question " could 
be settled only by the retirement of the 
Mussulmans from the province. "The 
two races," he said very emphatically, 
" cannot live together on terms of 
equality such as any conference after 
the war would doubtless be willing to 
establish. The great, majority of the 
Turks consider us as inferior animals, 
made to be oppressed by them anil to 
serve them. They do not hate our 
religion, but they take advantage of the 
social inferiority which it imposes on us 
to rob us, to abuse us as any tyrannical 
invaders might, and to murder us when 
we resist. Even if there were any 
willingness on their part to agree tem- 
porarily to some amicable arrangement, 
they would not long keep their promise, 
and our lives would be made wretched 
by revolution after revolution. In their 
eves we are but dogs, unworthy of 
their attention save as servitors. This 
point of view must never be forgotten 
in estimating Turkish conduct in these 
provinces. The Turk desires distinctly 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



773 



to live by the product of our toil, and 
not to be in harmony with us. He must 
go, as lie di<l from Servia, or (here will 
he no peace for ns." This gentleman 
also thought that unless the Russians 
should leave an occupying force large 
enough to enforce upon the Turkish 
population any measures supposed lo lie 
the natural fruit of the war they would 
have rendered lint a sorry service to 
Bulgaria. 

The very name Kezanlik commem- 
orates an injustice on the part of the 
Turks against which the inhabitants 
were compelled to protest. Tradition 
recounts that long ago a. sultan making 
a tour in tin' mountains saw a great 
number of children dressed in white 
robes coming to meet him, whereupon 
he cried out, " Neh interler bun atchkia 
Tcezanlikf" (" What do all these pretty 
babes in white gowns want of me?") 
The last word in the sultan's sentence 
became the official name of the locality. 
But tradition does not state what answer 
the sultan made to the prayer of the 
children, for they had come to tell him 
that because their fathers had been 
violently incorporated in the Turkish 
army their fields were uncultivated and 
their village was in ruins. Probably the 
sultan said that it was all Christian hum- 
bug, and sent the children away with 
empty compliments. 

The men and women in the rose gar- 
dens in and around Kezanlik are of fine 
stature and graceful manners, and, al- 
though the women are rarely beautiful 
they possess that nameless charm born 
of perfect health and proud virtue. The 

distillation of the essence of roses is a 

very simple process, both in the large 
establishments in the town and in the 
farmer's own abode. Sometimes the 
still is erected in the shade of a. huge 
tree. Donkey-loads of flowers are 



brought to it all day long. The priest 
comes to bless the Arcadian labor, and 
to chat with the women who strip the 
rose petals from their stems. As many 
as eighty thousand roses are often used 
in the preparation of a single small flask 
of the precious odor. 

The thriving region extending for 
miles around Eski Zaghra, the next town 
of importance in this part of Bulgaria, 
was so utterly ruined by Suleiman's vin- 
dictive campaign that it must remain a 
partial desert for many years. The sol- 
diers and the Mussulman peasantry aimed 
especially at the destruction of the 
churches and schools in the villages near 
Eski Zaghra, as well as all Christian in- 
stitutions in the last-mentioned town. 
Every farmer was accused of having 
given aid and comfort to the Russians, 
and was massacred as soon as caught, 
without trial and without any semblance 
of justice. I doubt if there has been 
such wholesale slaughter — murder on so 
large a scale — at any previous time in 
the present century. The testimony 
was unimpeachable. Thousands of fu- 
gitives straggled across the mountains 
in the first days of August, and spread 
the details of their misery throughout the 
Yantra valley. Gabrova and Tirnova 
were filled with motherless children and 
with childless mothers. A more piteous 
spectacle than these poor wretches pre- 
sented as they made their way through 
the Shipka Pass could not be imagined. 
More than sixty villages in the plain 
near Eski Zaghra were burned ; the pop- 
ulation had fled to the large town, 
thinking there to secure protection from 
the Russians or (he fragments of the 
"Bulgarian Legion ;" but they found the 
Russians already preparing to retire be- 
yond the Balkans. Those who remained 
were nearly all killed. The Bulgarian Le- 
gion fought as well as it could for the de- 



774 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

fenceofEski Zaghra, but was of course no who had left their farms at the approach 

match for the trained troops of Suleiman of the Russians now gratified their de- 

— veterans who had been pitted against sire for vengeance by massacring their 

the Montenegrins — even if those troops own Christian farm-laborers and tenants, 

had not been twenty times their number. They personally conducted soldiery to 

The Legion endeavored, when it round these farms, and enabled them to distin- 

that its ranks were rapidly thinned, to guish between Christian and Mussulman. 

retreat, protecting the population; but In the town of Eski Zaghra, where thirty 

Suleiman's artillery was brought to bear thousand Christians must have been 

on the fleeing women and children, and gathered that evening, the number of 

thousands were so frightened that they murders amounted to more than ten 

preferred to face death in the town rath- thousand. The Christian quarter was 

er than in the fields. As evening came fired, that the murderers might see to do 

on the poor Bulgarians began to take their work, and the miserable people saw 

courage, for the artillery fire had ceased themselves denounced by Turks who had 

and the battle seemed over; but they been their neighbors for years. The 

did not understand the devilish malice wounded were despatched with hatchets 

of Suleiman. lie had surrounded the and rude stone hammers in the hands of 

town just as dusk fell (this was on the women. Schoolmistresses were sought 

thirty-first of duly), and by means of an out, arrested, and 1 need not dwell upon 

endless chain of pickets made sure of the sad fate which awaited them. Mur- 

his prey. Nearly all who endeavored der finally released them from a captivity 

to get out were butchered, although a which was ten-hundred-fold worse than 

gentleman farmer, named Naumof, from death. Two beautiful young women, 

whom I received inv account of the who hail been highly educated and were 

Turkish conduct on this fearful night, es- the pride of the- town, were murdered in 

caped some time after the massacre had the most revolting manner, and savagely 

begun. As soon as the sentinels were mutilated afterward. The inhabitants of 

placed Suleiman sent a force of Circas- Guneli-Mahlesi, of Radni-Mahlesi, of 

sians, guided by Mussulman inhabitants Bed) Tepc, of Guneli, of Baghdan- 

who had fled from the Russian Mahlesi, populous tanning communities, 

advance, but had now returned with the were nearly all in Eski Zaghra. and most 

Turkish forces— to begin the work of of them perished there. On the day of 

murder. My informant was warned to this massacre I rode with Prince Mirsky 

escape bv a. neighbor who, while in the and his stall' from Gabrova to Selvi, as 

loft of his own house, heard a noise in it was then supposed that the Turks 

the kitchen below, and was almost para- were advancing toward the latter place 

lv/.ed with terror on seeing two Circas- from Loftscha, and at Selvi we heard 

sians pillaging there. More dead than plenty of tales of atrocities quite as 

alive, he managed to leap from a small awful as those which a few hours later 

back window, and gave the alarm to were echoed from Eski Zaghra. The 

Naumof. The screams of women were Bulgarians paid a terrible price for 

heard and flames were arising from Gourko's unsupported advance into 

burning houses as the two farmers tied Roumelia. 

together toward the mountains. The kaimakaui of Eski Zaglna had 

The agas and other Turkish notables the unparalleled effrontery two months 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



775 



after the massacre to publish a state- 
ment which was sent out like a diplo- 
matic circular, from Constantinople, and 
which announced that the Bulgarians 
had fallen upon and murdered hundreds 
of Mussulmans in the foulest manner. 
It is unnecessary to add that this state- 
ment had no foundation in fact. 

That the Bulgarians were making an 
earnest effort to help themselves was 
visible during the last weeks of my des- 
ultory tour in their war-ravaged country. 
The Russian troops at that time were so 
few and so widely scattered that the 
Turks could readily have committed 
twice the havoc which they succeeded 
in doing. Indisposition to attack, but 
great bravery, persistence, and skill in 
defending a place which they had them- 
selves occupied and fortified were the 
distinguishing features of the Turkish 
campaign on the Danube side of the 
Balkans at that particular period. Selvi, 
a threatened point, had not Russians 
enough in it to fight a small battalion 
uutil a Turkish occupation seemed im- 
minent, when three or four thousand 
men were thrown hastily forward, leav- 
ing other important points uncovered. 
But at Selvi the Bulgarians were armed, 
roughly uniformed, had placed strips of 
white linen ornamented with the cross 
over the red skull-caps which they had 
worn under Turkish domination, ami 
were scouring the country for baslii- 
bazouks and Circassians. The least ru- 
mor placed every man on the alert, and 
it was pleasant to see these men, who 
had been, in the estimation of the world, 
but cowering hinds for long centuries, 
suddenly asserting their right to inde- 
pendence. 

And why should they not be inde- 
pendent? The Bulgarians have a history 
which will bear favorable comparison with 
that of many small nations who are much 



louder in their claims for immediate at- 
tention — the Roumanians, for example. 
Sprung from a stout Fiuuo-Ural tribe, 
which made its name and fame feared, 
and knocked at the gates of Constan- 
tinople more than once ; which fixed the 
residence of its kings at a point near the 
heights on which the virgin Mussulman 
fortress of Shumla, " the tomb of the in- 
fidel," stands to-day ; and which finally 
merged with the Slavic race, adopting 
Christianity and the Slavic idiom at the 
same time, — the Bulgarian of the pres- 
ent has no occasion to be ashamed of 
his origin. In the struggles with Byzan- 
tium, both before and after the savage 
had become a Christian, and had estab- 
lished a rude literature, the Bulgarians 
appear to have had the advantage quite 
as often as the Greek emperors had. It 
is not a little curious that the first time 
the Russians, or people from the terri- 
tory now Russian, entered Bulgaria, it 
was to aid Byzantium against the Fin- 
no-Bulgarian power in 903, and to fight 
a battle near Adrianople which enabled 
the Greek emperor to subjugate his 
formidable enemies. Then the Russian 
prince, who had brought down his forces 
to aid in punishing the Bulgarians, did 
not wish to leave the country, and the 
Greek emperor was compelled to drive 
him out. The history of the second and 
third Bulgarian dynasties — for the 
national life revived under a new form 
after two severe trials, during which its 
enemies fancied that they had crushed 
it, — the history of these dynasties is 
filled with records of alternate triumphs 
and humiliations. There is lint one 
epoch in the annals of the Bulgarians 
when they seem to have leaned toward 
the Church of Rome, and that was in the 
days of Rope Innocent III., who sent 
legates to stir them up against the 
schismatic Greeks. The story of the 



776 



EUROPE jy STORM AM) CALM. 



refusal of Baldwin L, Latin emperor of 
Constantinople, to aid the Bulgarians in 
their proposed campaign against these 
Greeks is familiar to students of his- 
tory. Great misfortunes befell Baldwin 
because of this refusal; for the Bul- 
garians joined with the very Greeks 
whom Pope Innocent bad excited them 
against, captured Baldwin and his army 
in a great light at Adrianoplc, and 
finally put him to death with cruel 
tortures at Tirnova, where the tomb of 
the wretched monarch is still pointed 
out. Tirnova was long the residence of 
the Bulgarian czars, and was mercilessly 
sacked by the Turks when they took it 
in 1393. The Turk came into a section 
of Europe which was so divided between 
numerous nationalities, already ex- 
hausted by struggles against each other, 
that be hail an easy task in subduing 
the Bulgarians. 

One of the bugbears which the enthu- 
siastic patriots who formed the league 
of •■ Young Bulgaria" fancied that they 
found in their way was a tendency on 
the part of their population to emigrate 
to Scrvia, and for a long time it was 
feared that nearly all the farmers would 
desert to the neighbor state. The Ser- 
vians were naturally willing to take 
advantage of such a feeling; but now 
that Bulgaria has a chance for her 
autonomy, her farmers and artisans are 
not at all anxious to desert her. Thou- 
sands of stout fellows who have been 
in the habit of working in Hungary, 
Roumania, and Scrvia every summer and 
autumn will now devote their energies 
to building up homes for themselves in 
their native land. Bulgaria has rich 
soil, a people admirably adapted lor 
highly intelligent agriculture: and now 
it needs only roads, schools, and rail- 
ways — in short, precisely that which ii 
can never obtain under Turkish rule- 



to facilitate its development into a. 
strong state. 

The assertion that the Turks have 
never used any portion of the money 
which they wring annually from the 
Christians in Bulgaria for improvements 
useful to the Bulgarians themselves is 
susceptible of proof. The road into 
Kounielia by way of fshipka was almost 
impassable for years, but one tine day 
the sultan wished to make a species of 
triumphal journey to Silistria, so the 
route was put in order. If any money 
were expended in public works, those 
works were sure to be of a military 
character, and did not profit the 
Christians a particle. Turkish authority 
has frequently prevented Bulgarians 
from making improvements even at their 
own expense, and any stranger propos- 
ing the introduction of commercial en- 
terprise was pretty certain to suffer in 
some fashion. 

The great abuses in taxation in this 
fertile province sprang out of a system 
planned with marvellous cunning. In 
the cities and large towns the collection 
of taxes was conducted with some show 
of fairness. Each community being 
divided into mahcilis, or •• quarters," in 
which Turks, Christians, and .lews lived 
by themselves, the '•chief" of each 
quarter fixed the amount of the tax and 
collected it. But the unfortunate people 
in the villages and farmers in remote 
country districts were not allowed such 
favors us this. Numbers of districts 
were consolidated, and "sold out" In- 
order of tln> government at public 
auction for a large sum. The people 
who paid this sum to the government 
were always Mussulmans, and they 
exercised no mercy in collecting the 
money, crops and stock necessary for 
their reimbursement. They might col- 
lect fourfold the amount justly due : the 



EUROPE l.V STORM AND CALM. 



77 



government would say nothing, having 
been paid. Or even if some authority 
were inclined to examine into the com- 
plaints of the wretched Bulgarians, a 
share of the ill-gotten gains of the plun- 
derers soon stifled the official's meagre 
sense of justice. The peasant might 
become proprietor of land in various 
ways, although the whole country was 
recognized as being the personal prop- 
erty of the sultan. But whenever a 
pasha or an envious Turk wished to 
acquire a farm which a Bulgarian had 
been laboriously developing for years, 
he had but to signify his wish, and for a 
small sum the farmer was compelled to 
see the fruit of his labor pass into the 
hauls of another. This proceeding had 
become so common in Bulgaria during the 
hist few years as to have excited numer- 
ous indignant remonstrances from Euro- 
peans inhabiting the country. In time 
of war there was no end to oppression 
by the Turks. It might literally be said 
that Christians had no rights, and that 
if they had possessed any they would 
not have been respected. 

All these things may be spoken of as 
in the past, for it is reasonably certain 
that the Bulgarians will never again sub- 
mit to Turkish taxation. When I left 
Gabrova a blonde-bearded Russian who 
had come directly from a Central Asian 
campaign to aid in transforming Bulga- 
ria was equipping trustworthy peasants 
with guns and badges, and delegating 
to them authority as police-agents in 
the various villages in the neighborhood. 
Life and property were soon to become 
safe in a region where Christians had 
not heretofore known the blessings of 
the security which is the fruit of just and 
well-executed law. The Russians were 
as methodical and earnest in their labors 
as if they intended to fix Muscovite 
power for ages in the country ; and it 



was difficult to understand that they in- 
tended to withdraw after the conclusion 
of a satisfactory peace. 

From ISclvi I went forward in the di- 
rection of Lofiseha, but found that Prince 
Mil sky had ordered the troops to go into 
intrenchments, which indicated a delay 
of many days before active operations 
were likely to begin. As I rode across 
country through dozens of Mussulman 
villages, some of which contained as 
many as eight thousand inhabitants, 
alarms were frequent, but generally 
causeless. In a Christian village, set 
down oddly enough in the very centre 
of a district inhabited almost entirely 
by followers of the Prophet, I found 
the whole population under arms and in 
a state of intense excitement because of 
the rumor that a large force of Turks 
hid been seen in the adjacent mountains. 
The chief of the village had canned the 
arrest of two travelling peasants sup- 
posed to be spies, and the visages of 
these worthies as they sat upon the 
ground waiting until the villagers could 
find time to shoot them were not pleas- 
ant to contemplate. The madman of 
the hamlet had felt it his duty to join in 
the affair, and as I rode up he came car- 
acoling and gambolling out of a field, 
stark naked, with his head crowned with 
straw and wild-flowers, and chattering as 
fiercely as an enraged ape. The insane 
are allowed to wander thus unmolested 
in Bulgaria, as in some parts of Spain. 
I have rarely seen a figure at once so 
picturesque and terrible as this miser- 
able creature. 

The Turkish villagers were civil 
enough, probably because strong de- 
tachments of Russian troops occasion- 
ally passed over the road, although in 
my ride of sixty miles I saw only one 
officer and four Cossacks. Several col- 
lections of bashi-l.iazouks, guarded by 



77S 



EUR OPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



the newly-organized Christian police, 
passed me, their hands tied behind their 
backs and their faces testifying to a proud 
disdain. Their gayly-colored garments 

were tattered, and their ample collec- 
tions of weapons, carried in carts behind 
the processions of prisoners, indicated 
that a general raid upon this murderous 
gentry had been organized. Most of the 
villagers disclaimed any knowledge of 
their movements, and hastened to give 
us proofs of their good-will by ottering 
us water and fruit and by saying pleas- 
ant things. Their superb corn, such as 
one sees elsewhere only in America, had 
been left untouched by the Russians ; 
but the watermelons and pumpkins had 
all vanished from the crawling vines, 
the soldier finding the temptation greater 
than he could resist. 

I arrived near Tirnova in the middle 
of the night, and while my horse was 



slowly picking his way across the pretty 
range of hills which hems in the Yantra, 
a gray-coated sentinel started out from the 
bushes near a smouldering watch-fire and 
bade me halt. The "Svoi" — "Yanis" 
given in return did not serin In satisfy 
him, but after a careful examination I 
was allowed to pass mi down into the val- 
ley between odorous thickets from which 
thousands of fire-Hies sent forth their fit- 
ful gleams ; down to a plateau whence 
I could see the lights of Tirnova, like 
myriads of stars hovering close to earth ; 
down to to the camp, whence came up the 
old Homeric hum so impressive after the 
stillness of the country bridle-paths and 
the forests over and through which I had 
just passed. 

Meantime the great battle which had 
been fought near Plevna had cheeked 
the advance of the Russians. They 
proposed, but Osman Pasha disposed. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



779 



CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE. 



Plevna and its Influence on the Russian Campaign. — The Roumanians. — Their Valor in the Field. — 
Osman Pasha. — The Despair of Skohclcff. — Across the Balkans. — The Descent Upon Con- 
stantinople—Hostility of England to Russian Designs. — The Berlin Congress. — Its Result, — 
The Partition of South-Eastern Europe. 



THE picturesque and heroic incidents 
of the Rnsso-Turkish war are still 
too fresh in the minds of all to require a 
detailed recital here. After the appear- 
ance of Suleiman Pasha upon the scene 
it seemed as if the tide had begun to 
turn against the crusading Russians. 
The taking of Loftcha by the Turks ; 
the march of Gen. Gourko to Yeni- 
Zaghra, and the capture of the town ; 
the defeat of the newly-organized 
Bulgarian Legion at Eski-Zaghra ; the 
retreat of Gourko to the northern 
side of the Balkans ; the fortifica- 
tion of the Shipka and the HainkoV 
Passes ; the terrible atrocities com- 
mitted by the Turks upon the helpless 
Russian wounded ; the sudden develop- 
ment of a formidable military force out 
of the heretofore derided and underesti- 
mated Roumanian army ; the siege of 
Plevna, with its fearful losses and its 
protracted miseries, — all these things 
rang throughout Europe, and had their 
echoes in America. The Russians had 
already begun to exercise their sover- 
eignty in Bulgaria, had proclaimed laws 
exempting the Christians from odious 
taxes, had abolished tithes, and were 
gradually substituting themselves for the 
Turkish authorities, when the severe 
check in front of Plevna changed the 
whole character of the campaign. It is 
said that the loss of the Russians in 
killed, wounded, sick, and prisoners, 
during the actions of the 19th, 20th, and 



21st of July, and in the great battle of 
the 31st before Plevna, amounted to 
more than ten thousand men. The 
heroic Gen. Skobeleff — one of the few 
men of genius in the Russian army — 
did prodigies of valor in these fights, 
but all in vain. 

The clitics who say that the Russians 
had, in their descent into Bulgaria, be- 
lieved that the Turks would offer only a 
slight resistance, are quite correct. The 
Russians crossed the Danube with in- 
sufficient forces, and during all the 
early weeks of the campaign they saw 
so few Turks and encountered so little 
opposition that they fancied they could 
go straight to the gates of Constanti- 
nople without more than an occasional 
skirmish. Plevna was not only a great 
surprise, it was a veritable disaster. 
The consternation in Roumnnia was 
frightful after the news of the defeat of 
the Russians, but this news had for its 
effect the awakening of the valiant 
Roumanian people into an energy which 
they had not even suspected themselves 
of possessing. When it looked as if the 
Russians were about to be annihilated, 
that the forces in Bulgaria would be 
cut off from the Danube, and that the 
Turks would cross the historic stream 
and invade the principalities which had 
so long been independent of them, the 
Roumanian government rose to the emer- 
gency. But the Russians sat quietly 
down and took the defensive, and sent 



780 EUKOPK IN STORM AND CALM. 

homo for one hundred thousand men, been such obstinate and well disputed 
who were soon on their way. The posi- fields. Osman Pasha had succeeded, 
tions iii front, of Plevna were strongly since the occupation of Plevna in July, 
fortified and armed with artillery ; com- in turning :i simple village into an elab- 
panies of cavalry were dispatched on orate fortress, bristling with redoubts 
independent expeditions, with the view and trenches. The Russian wave swept 
of blocking the passes through the up from time to time against these for- 
lialkans, and the Russians were greatly midable defences, only to be swept back 
encouraged by the failure of the Turks again. Skobeleff wore out his heart in 
to assume the offensive in any important heroic, but always reckless endeavors, 
degree. Meantime the emperor of to break the Turkish lines. On the 11th 
Russia lived in the most unostentatious of September there was a great Russian 
manner in the little village of Gorny attack on Plevna. A temporary success 
Studcn, suffering privation ami diseom- was. however, followed by an ultimate 
fort with that excellent temper and defeat of Kriloff's ami Krudener's di- 
entire lack of affectation which char- visions. This "battle in the mists" 
acteri/.ed the man. Suleiman Pasha, was described by an eye-witness as 
thundering at the gates of Shipka, one of the most thrilling and terrible 
attempted in vain to dispossess of the whole campaign. "Along the 
the Russians of their hold on the Bal- course of the Radisovo range," wrote the 
kans, miking upwards of one hundred brilliant and courageous Mr MacGahan, 
distinct attacks in less than seven days. — who was destined not to survive the 
When the month of August closed, in fatiguing campaign, but to die in a hos- 
1877, the fortunes of the Russians had pital at Constantinople, — " the Russian 
improved. They rallied from the check guns could be perceived at work with 
received at Plevna ; they held their own figures flitting round them, dimly seen 
at the Balkans ; reinforcements were through the smoke, strangely magnified 
appearing, and new operations were by the intervention of the fog, until the 
resumed with vigor. The Russo-Rou- gunners appeared like giants, and the 
mauian army, commanded by Prince guns themselves, enlarged and distorted 
Charles, of Roumania, now sat down by the same medium, seemed like huge, 
before the important positions at Plevna, uncouth monsters from whose throats 
and sustained a furious attack by Osman at every instant leaped forth globes of 
Pasha on the last day of August. This flame. There were moments when 
was one of the most sanguinary com- these Hashes .seemed to light up every- 
bats of tin' campaign. The Russians thing around them: then the guns and 
and Roumanians both fought with gunners appeared for an instant with 
desperate valor, and Osman, who had fearful distinctness, red and lurid, as if 
expected to drive the enemy from all tinged with blood. Then they sank back 
his positions, was compelled to admit again into shadowy indistinctness. The 
his complete failure. uproar of the battle rose and swelled 
The September combats in front of until it became fearful to hear — like 
Plevna are famous, ami reflect the the continuous roar of an angry sea beat- 
greatest credit on the courage of Turks, ing against a rock-bound coast, corn- 
Roumanians and Russians. Rarely in fined with that of a thunder-storm, with 
the history of the century have there the strange, unearthly sounds heard on 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



781 



board a ship when laboring in a gale." sword broken, his decorations twisted on 

In the contest of this day General his shoulders, his face black with pow- 
Skobeleff's splendid lighting added new der and smoke, his eyes bloodshot, and 
lustre to his already phenomenal reputa- his voice broken. When asked the rea 
tion. No obstacle seemed to daunt son of the disaster, he said no reinforce 
him; nothing could frighten him. Even ments had been sent him, and added, " I 
after the Russians had fallen away from blame nobody ; it was the will of God." 
the terrific fire of the Turkish redoubt The Roumanians had meantime taken 
Skobeleff rallied 
the stragglers 
and carried them 
forward into the 
very enemy's 
lines ; his own 
sword was cut 
in two in the 
middle, while he 
was leaping a 
ditch ; his horse 
shotdead under- 
neath him, and 
he rolled into 
the ditch, but 
sprang to his 
feet with a shout, 
and finally led 
the mass of 
men over the 
ditch, scarp and 
counterscarp 
and parapet, and 
into the redoubt. 

This little affair cost Skobeleff two 




EPISODE OF THE SIEGE OF PLEVNA. 



thousand men in killed and wounded, or 
one-quarter of his whole attacking force. 
The wonderful manner in which he es- 



and held the redoubt; but the attack on 
Plevna, as a whole, was a disastrous 
failure. This attack had cost, in a few 
clays of fighting, twenty thousand men. 



caped all harm confirmed the belief The Roumanian army had no surgical ar- 
amongst his men that he bore a charmed rangements, and the wounded were left 
life. On the afternoon of the 12th he to die for the want of ministering hands. 
was compelled to suffer defeat. The The Russian medical and sanitary .staffs 
redoubt which he won at such terrible were quite inefficient in presence of this 
cost was deserted by the Russians in the tremendous drain upon them, and the 
presence of an overwhelming force soldiers looked forward to the horrors of 
brought to bear against them, and Sko- a winter campaign with shuddering fear. 
beleff came out of the final fight witli his The dead left neglected on the battle- 
clothes covered with mud and filth, his fields were mutilated by the Turkish 



782 



EUROPE IX STiiUM AXI> CALM. 



irregulars, and the wounded subjected to 

the most atrocious cruelties while the 
breath of life was leaving them. When 
September closed no one could have 
prophesied that the Russians would suc- 
ceed in driving the Turks from their 
stronghold, and the enemies of Russia 
boldly announced the complete failure 
of the campaign for the relief of the 
Christians in the East. The Russian 
emperor maintained his head-quarters at 
Gorny Studen, leading an active life. 
devoting the morning to current affairs, 
having about him only a little suite of 
fifty officers, working late at night, and 
being awakened for the telegrams ar- 
riving from the capital, although they 
came long after the small hours. 

Early in October the Russian rein- 
forcements had arrived in Bulgaria, but 
Osman Pasha had also received new 
forces. By and by the Imperial Guard 
had a serious brush with the enemy, 
which resulted in the capture of a posi- 
tion completing the investment of Plevna. 
Four hundred siege-guns were planted 
about the town. Skobeleff resumed his 
old daring activity; General Todleben 
conducted the siege with marked ability ; 
Russian cavalry, scouring the roads to 
the southward, captured the supplies 
which Osman Pasha, needed for his 
hungry troops. At, the beginning of 
November the length of the investing 
line was said to be thirty miles, occu- 
pied by an army of one hundred and 
twenty thousand men. Autumn faded 
into winter; the suffering was great in 
all the armies, the bad management of 
the Russian camps contributing greatly 
to the mortality on the Russian side. 
In November Came the expedition of 
General Gourko into the Balkans, the 
great and dangerous passage over the 
mountains, the evacuation of Etropol by 
the Turks, and finally, in December, the 



last great effort of the Turkish army to 
break through the investing lines, its 
furious encounter with the Russians and 
the Roumanians, followed by negotia- 
tions for a surrender. Plevna was at 
the end of its resources. The Emperor 
and his suite had been summoned in 
haste to the mount of Radisovo, where 
they witnessed the failure of Osman 
Pasha's attempt to secure his liberty. 
The attempt to break through the Russo- 
Roumanian lines lasted about six hours, 
cost the Turks live thousand men in 
dead and wounded, and from thirty 
thousand to forty thousand as prisoners 
of war. The Russian loss in this latest 
battle was only about fifteen hundred. 
The Turkish commander was highly 
complimented by the Grand Duke Nich- 
olas and all the members of his staff, 
and by Prince Charles of Roumania, on 
his gallant defense of Plevna. It is 
thought that Osman Pasha supposed 
General Gourko to have weakened the 
Russian investment-line by taking away 
so many men when he started on his 
expedition across the Balkans. It is 
also said that the Turkish General had 
received imperative orders to fight his 
way through the lines at any cost. 

The statistics of the combating forces, 
published at the time, indicate that Rus- 
sia and Roumania had an effective of 
one hundred and nineteen thousand 
men, with five hundred and fifty-eight 
field guns. The forces in the Balkans 
numbered thirty thousand men. with one 
hundred and sixty-two guns. The army 
of the Lorn, commanded by the Czare- 
witch, had seventy-three thousand men, 
with four hundred and thirty-two guns ; 
and the forces in the Dobrudscha and 
Eastern Roumelia comprised thirty-eight 
thousand men, with four hundred and 
forfy guns. The Turks had. in West- 
ern Bulgaria, ninety-two thousand men, 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



T.s:; 



with one hundred and thirty-two guns, 
and in these are included the army of 
Osman Pasha taken by the Russians ; 
and in addition to these were about four 
thousand irregulars, who did most of the 
mutilating and slaughter of the wounded. 
The Turkish forces in the Balkans 
amounted to twenty-two thousand men, 
with seventy-six guns, a number of mor- 
tars, and a horde of fanatical irregulars ; 
and, finally, one hundred and thirty-five 
thousand men in the Quadrilateral and 
the Dobrudscha, with three hundred and 
eighty-six guns, and fully sixty thousand 
irregulars. 

By this time English opinion was 
greatly excited against Russia, and 
prophecies were constantly made in 
Great Britain that the Russians would 
never succeed in getting over the Bal- 
kans and on their way to the fertile 
slopes of Roumelia, although they had 
seemingly broken the strongest resist- 
ance to their advance upon the Turkish 
capital. 

Plevna fell on the t)th of December, 
1877. The Russians had been victorious 
in Asia. Suleiman Pasha had received 
a severe defeat in his assault on the 
lines of the Czarewitch, and there was 
great consternation in the Turkish capi- 
tal. The new Sultan went through the 
farce of opening the Turkish Parliament, 
gave an address from the throne as if he 
had been a veritable constitutional sover- 
eign ; indulged in moderate language 
about the revolt of his provinces, and 
indicated his disbelief that they would 
succeed in permanently wresting them- 
selves from his grasp. Meantime the 
Servians had again taken up arms and 
were vigorously pushing the disheartened 
and broken Turkish forces along their 
frontier. Europe was indisposed to 
mediate in favor of the preservation of 
Turkey, although England used her best 



interests to secure such mediation. The 
Czar of Russia returned through Bucha- 
rest, where he had a most imposing re- 
ception, and through the cities of South- 
ern Russia to St. Petersburg, where, in 
the great Kazan Cathedral, he was re- 
ceived by the Metropolitan, and stood 
before the Grand Altar to give thanks 
for the victory which seemed likely to 
liberate the Slavs. Imposing ceremonies 
lasted several days. The Emperor com- 
memorated the centennial of the birth of 
his uncle, Alexander I., and made a pil- 
grimage among the tombs of his ances- 
tors, kissing the marble of each shrine. 
Commemorative medals, struck for the 
occasion, were laid upon the tombs. All 
Russia was in joy. Prince Gortschakoff 
remarked that if England wanted war 
she would have to declare it, and if she 
wanted peace she would have to wait for 
it, — concise and frosty definition of the 
situation at that time, which would, per- 
haps, have served admirably for a de- 
scription of the situation in the spring of 
1885. 

The winter campaign of the Rus- 
sians in the Balkans and across them 
was a memorable feat of arms. The 
terrible snow-storms, the breaking of 
the pontoon-bridges over the Danube, — 
which were the only connection that 
the Russians had with their base of 
supplies, ■ — ■ the inefficiency of the trans- 
port system, the difficulties of marching 
thousands of shivering Turkish prisoners 
onward and across the great plains, the 
destitution which followed in Russia as 
a natural consequence of the great sacri- 
fice for the prosecution of the war, — all 
these gave much hope to the enemies of 
Russia, who had now set themselves vig- 
orously ti> work to prevent the northern 
power from reaping the reward of her 
energy and bravery. General Gourko's 
advance over the Balkans, his descent ou 



784 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 

th<' southern side, the surprise and the but an edifice riddled with bullets, inea- 

discouragement of the Turks, — all these pable of defense. 

things have been ably chronicled by the At this juncture England threw her 
brilliant correspondents who aecompa- shadow across the Russian advance. 
nied the expedition, by men like Millet An Englishman of talent, Baker Pasha, 
and MacGahan. General Gourko swept was openly aiding scattered remnants of 
down upon the town of Sophia, where Suleiman's army iu such resistance as 
he was met by thousands of citizens led they were in condition to make. The 
by priests with banners, crucifixes, and British Parliament was wild with excite- 
lanterns. One of the priests carried a ment, and £6,000,000 sterling was voted 
salver with bread and salt. For the as a possible war credit by an enthusias- 
first time since 1131 a Christian army tic majority. The Conservative party 
was within the walls of the ancient town, clearly defined its policy of at all haz- 
Orders had been sent from Constantino- ards preventing Russia occupying Con- 
pie to burn Sophia and to blow up the stantinople, and of undoing, so far as 
mosques ; but this order was not heeded, possible, the results of her crusade. 
Nor was there time to execute such or- Turkey was not to be destroyed; the 
der. Meantime the Servians were sue- "sick man" of Europe was to he pre- 
cessful. The frontier town of Nisch served from his impending dissolution. 
surrendered. Gen. Gourko renewed his London was stormy with rumors of war; 
advance towards Constantinople ; Philip- the Jingo faction sang songs, and be- 
popolis was abandoned, — Philippopo- smirched Mr. Gladstone with indecent 
lis. which might have been occupied in refrains in music-halls. An armistice 
August of 1877 if the Russians had was concluded ; but the Russians con- 
been in force to crush the intruding tinued their advance, and set up a claim 
(Ismail Pasha when he first appeared at to take back the portion of Bessarabia 
Plevna. ceded to Moldavia in L85G, — a claim 
The heroic valor of Fuad Pasha was which greatly dissatisfied their Rouma- 
of little avail ; the Turkish army under nian allies. Turkey was evidently pow- 
his command was defeated and dispersed, erless in Russia's hands, and it was then 
At the same time through the Shipka that the English determined to send a 
Pass came (leu. Radetzky, Suleiman British (leet, to the Dardanelles, to force 
Pasha's army was annihilated, and there a passage there if necessary, and to anchor 
were proposals for an armistice. Greece their ships in sight of Constantinople, 
was agitated ; there was an insurrection When the Russians heard that the 
in Thessaly ; European Turkey was dis- British were about to send a detachment 
appearing like " the baseless fabric of a, of the Mediterranean fleet to afford 
vision." Adrianople was next aban- protection, in case of need, to English 
doned by the Turks, and, while peace subjects residing iu that city, they an- 
aegotiations dragged slowly forward, the nounced that for precisely the same 
Russians went with confident and swift object they had in view the entry into 
step to the gates <>f the Turkish capital. Constantinople of part of their troops. 
Turkish troops were concentrated at Gal- Needless to say that this Russian sug- 
lipoli ; the Servians and Montenegrins, gestion was received with great disfavor 
grown bolder, won numerous victories, in England, and that it strengthened the 
Turkey in Europe was no longer anything war party's hands in that country. 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



785 



Presently the head-quarters of the 
Grand Duke Nicholas, as commander of 
the Russian armies, was removed from 
Adrianople to San Stefano, where the 

Russians were only twelve miles from 
the Turkish capital, on the Sea of Mar- 
mora, and where it was proposed to 
consult as to the signature of the treaty 
of peace. General Ignatieff, the able 
Russian ambassador to the Porte, who 
had had complete power over the unfor- 



in the south-east of Europe was extreme. 
•' If," says a recent writer, " the treaty 
of San Stefano had Keen allowed to 
stand, the next step in the southward 
march of Russia — namely, the acquisi- 
tion of Constantinople — would have 
been even more facile than it is now. 
So easy and certain, indeed, that Russia 
could well have afforded to wait until, in 
a generation or two, the step could be 
taken with much less fear of awakening 




SIGNING THE TREATY OF SAN STEFANO. 



tunate Sultan Abdul Aziz, was the 
principal Russian agent for the negotia- 
tion of the treaty. The arrival of the 
Russians in San Stefano was intended 
as a counter demonstration to the pres- 
ence of the British fleet in the Sea of 
Marmora. Peace was signed on the 3d 
of March. 1*7*. in a little valley by the 
sea-side, — a valley from which the 
minarets of the ancient mosque of St. 
Sophia, in Constantinople, could be seen. 
The excitement in England over this 
consecration of the victories of Russia 



European fears or exciting their jealousy. 
No wonder so sweeping a revolution .-is 
thateffected by the treatyof SanStefano 
fell like a thunderbolt on the nations, 
and caused a feeling of general distrust. 
With blood-dropping sword and battered 
harness the gigantic figure of Muscovy 
strode over the prostrate and gasping 
Turk; but in the distance, behind the 
dispersing mists of war. stood the Powers 
of Europe which had an interest in the 
final settlement, and chief amongst them 
the enormous force of England." 



78<; 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



The Berlin Congress grew out of this 
influence of England, whose conserva- 
tive forces were so ably marshalled by 
Beaconsfield; but the proposition that 
the Congress should meet in Berlin came 
from Austria. Lord Beaconsfield had 
determined to call out the English re- 
serves ; warlike preparations were 
abundant throughout Great Britain, but 
more difficulty was found in mobilizing 
an efficient army of a size competent to 
cope with the great forces afield on the 
borders of the Orient. The English 
claimed that they could, within three 
months, or a shorter time, if necessary, 
despatch from their shores an army of 
one hundred thousand men in the highest 
state of efficiency. "The facility with 
which we can shift our base and move at 
pleasure by sea," said the "Times," "at 
least doubles the military power of Eng- 
land." Despite the signature of peace, 
the Turks were unanimous in theirdesire 
to renew the war with Russia, and the 
course adopted by England in bringing 
up from India large masses of native 
troops greatly encouraged the Turks in 
their hope of a revival of hostilities. In 
Germany and in Austro-Hungary there 
was a decided anti-Russian feeling. It 
was said that the Russians were estab- 
lishing a theoretical depotism in 
Bulgaria; Roumauia itself protested 
against the treaty of San Stefano, and 
even appealed to the English government 
to be allowed representation at the 
Berlin Congress. At last this Congress 
met in the capital to which the political 
power had been transferred from Paris 
as the result of the great German mili- 
tary victories. The French haughtily 
held aloof, chagrined and annoyed at the 
manifestation of their secular enemy's 
power in Europe. Lord Beaconstield 
arrived in Berlin early in June of 1878, 
and was received with great honors. 



Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, 
Great Britain, Italy, Russia and Turkey 
had sent plenipotentiaries to be seated 
round a green table in the Radziwill 
Palace, which was at that time occupied 
I >y Prince Bismarck. Representatives of 
Greece, Roumauia, and Servia, waited 
at the doors of Congress, in the hope that 
they might lay their claim before this 
diplomatic parliament. The Jews had 
sent an important delegation to plead 
their cause. The three great Premiers 
of Europe — Bismarck, Gortschakoff, 
and Beaconsfield — were each at that time 
suffering from severe indisposition. 
Gortschakoff was crippled with gout; 
Bismarck had just risen from a sick-bed, 
where he was placed from exhaustion 
from overwork, and Beaconsfield was 
obliged to repose every hour in which he 
was not engaged in the deliberations of 
the Congress. On the 13th of .Tune, 
1878, this distinguished body met, and 
proceeded with its work of putting back 
the hands of the Russian clock. A diplo- 
matic Congress in Europe is a battle- 
ground in which fierce jealousies, unre- 
lenting hatred, and petty prejudices rage 
without much restraint, although the 
phraseology employed is of the most 
delicate and courteous nature. 

In the Congress Prince Gortschakoff 
brought out clearly the position of the 
Christian races in Turkey, explained the 
antagonism of the Greeks and the Slavs, 
and the limits of Bulgaria; Beaconsfield 
unfolded his policy of checkmating 
Russia ; the Austrian designs on Bosnia 
and Herzegovina were set forth ; the 
independence of Servia was confirmed ; 
the Russian conquests in Asia were con- 
sidered, and the treaty of San Stefano 
thoroughly overhauled. The dexterous 
hand of Prince Bismarck was more than 
once interposed with marked advantage 
to the harmonious working of the con- 



EUROPE IN STORM AXO CALM. 



787 



"■/■■ — ;— ; — — : 




788 



ATA'"/'/-: [N STORM AND CALM. 



ference. The alterations in European shores of the /Egean. On the other 

Turkey effected by the treaty, which was hand it gave Austria permission to 

the outcome of the Berlin Congress, were occupy Bosnia, and gave her command 

not so great as those intended by the over Montenegro, thus affording a new 



treaty of SanStefano, but were enormous, 

and had for their substantial result the 
banishment of the Turk, who had grown 
tired of the. lands he so long 
misgoverned. To-day he 
has hut a slender foothold 
in Constantinople, and is 
menaced even in his pos- 
session of this historic 
capital. Lord Beacons- 
field and his followers 
claimed that the treaty of 
Berlin placed the Turkish 
empire in a position of in- 
dependence ; hut this is 
altogether too much to 
claim for it. It did indeed 
protect, what little was left 
of the Turkish Empire in 
Europe, but that was so 
little a> to be scarcely 
worth preserving. The 
modifications of the San 
Stefano treaty were, how- 
ever, numerous. The new 
treaty divided the so-called 
Bulgaria into two prov- 
inces, — one to the north of the Bal- 
kans being tributary to the Sultan ; 
one to the south, Eastern Roumelia, 
to he under the Sultan's direct authority, 
but with administrative autonomy, and 
with a Christian governor-general. The 
Berlin treaty reduced the stay of the 



protection against the Turk to the heroic 
little country. In short, by the Berlin 
Congress England had made a substantial 




THE RADZIWILL PALACE. IX 
WHICH THE BERLIN 7 CON- 
GRESS WAS HELD. 



demonstration 
against the ad- 
vance of Russia, 

and the estab- 
lish i n 2; of a 



southern Slavic 

empire, but had raised no impassable 
Russian army in European Turkey from barriers against the Russian advance. 
two years to nine months, and gave to Perhaps a less "imperial" policy on 
Ronmania as compensation for the part the part of Lord Beaconsfielcl and his 
of Bessarabia, — <>f which Russia had 
demanded the return, — a. greater 
amount of territory south of the Danube 
than had been given by the San Stefam 
treat v. 



followers, — a policy which should have 
allowed Russia free scope for her per- 
fectly justifiable advance in south- 
eastern Europe, — might have deter- 



It kept for Turkey the northern mined the Emperor of the North not to 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



789 



o 

55 



55 
H 
X 

; 

> 
2! 



►3 

3 

H 




7110 



KVUnPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



have made such gigantic strides in the and tins is as true now as it was whim 
direction of the Indian frontier; but the brilliant Frenchman said it. The 
Lord Reaconsfield wanted to undertake Turkish empire, with its innumerable 
a task for which he would have needed traditions, with its religious formulas 
seven times the military resources at his and its fanaticism, its lust of conquest 
command. lie wished to get complete and its rapacity ami injustice in deal- 
control in Afghanistan, to make the ing with subjugated provinces, will re- 
north-west frontier of India impregnable main in history as a warning to civilized 
against the Russians, while at the same powers not to degenerate into tyrants. 
time he prevented Russia from securing Its rdle in Europe is practically at an 
her coveted outlets in the south, and end, and this is a sufficient gain for the 



from protecting her kindred in the 
south-east of Europe. What he 
succeeded in doing was in strength- 
ening Russian hostility to England, 




•1 * 











PALACE OF THE BUI.TAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 



moment. The en- 
thusiastic Slavs, who 
say that out of the 
two hundred and 
eighty million inhab- 
itants of Europe 
there are eighty-six 
millions of their own 
nationality ; thatthey 
are more numerous 
than the Germanic 
race, and occupy' a 
wider space in Eu- 
rope than both the 
Germanic ami Latin 
races, doubtless 
hoped that on t of 
recent events would 
and increasing Russian determination to he horn the unification of their vari- 
wresf from England complete assent to mis branches, and that to a mighty 
a policy of assimilation, if not absorp- Slavic empire would be given the pre- 
tiou, in south-eastern Europe. To-day ponderance of power. But this is a 
Russia is hammering at the Afghan gates dream which will not be realized for 
for apparently no other reason than to many long years to come. Germany 
show England that she must be concilia- and Italy have been unified, lint the 
tory, or submit to a sudden and powerful Slavs must wait. Before they can bo 
assault upon her Indian frontier. merged in one great nation, Austria. 

It is not our purpose here to enter into must have disappeared, Russia must 
a detailed account of the progress of have given evidence of a resistless mil- 
Turkey since the severe blow which it itary force which she does not yet appear 
has received from the numerous insur- to possess, and Germany must have 
rections in south-eastern Europe, cov- given her consent to the unification, or 
ering .1 period from 1875 to 1M7.S. have been forced to accord it. The 
Lamartine said long ago of the Turk face of south-eastern Europe lias been 
that lie was only encamped in Europe, changed. Out of small and subjugated 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



791 



principalities have come almost inde- 
pendent and energetic kingdoms and 
provinces. The march of enterprise is 
visible in the now fertile fields and the 
noble forests along the great streams, 
and in the mountain passes, where it 
had not been seen for four hundred 
years. One of the richest, most fertile, 
beautiful, and enchanting portions of 
Europe, which had been lying in ruins 
and in neglect since the battle of Kos- 
sovo, has now, within a period of ten 



years, been open to all the influences of 
civilization, and the effect upon the 
whole European community of the vast 
changes in this section cannot fail to be 
very great. It is not dangerous to 
prophesy that in some of the new storms 
that are soon to sweep over Europe the 
standard of the Crescent will recede 
from Constantinople, and will disappear 
into those Asiatic recesses out of which 
it came. 



7!»2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETY. 

Munich in its Stony Plain by the [sar. — The Cold Greek Architecture of the Bavarian Capital. — 
The Monarchs of Bavaria. — The Present King Louis. — An Eccentric Sovereign. — Wagner 
and Bayreuth. — Gambrinus in Munich. 

P)ERLIN," says M. Victor Tissot, monarch, Louis, is, when first seen, quite 
-L-' "is in the midst of a desert of imposing. Here is the " Hall of Gen- 
saud. Munich stands in the centre of a erals," a lodge in the Italian style, with 
stony plain, which seems to express only niches adorned with statues; the great 
the sharpest and the most brutal things." Gate of Victory, with bronze statues 
M. Tissot went into Germany with a and reliefs; a church which contains the 
determination to see merely the unfavor- royal tombs ; equestrian statues : the war- 
able side of things; but he has told the office; the stately library with its beauti- 

initli with regard to the situati f two ful statues ; and hereand there are band- 

of the great German cities. some churches, always in the Italian 

Munich is a part of new Europe, for style. 

all that makes it specially attractive to The Germans of the south were am- 

the traveller has been pla I on the bitious of creating a new Athens at Mu- 

above-mentioned stony plain within the inch, and Louis I., of Bavaria, deserves 

last hundred years. The showy and the thanks of his generation for having 

pretentious edifices, often classical and grouped aboul him a great number of 

refined enough in architecture, seem to clever painters, who were perhaps a little 

shiver in tin' cold and inhospitable too willing to glorify the modest triumphs 

atmosphere of the vast expanse at the of this Teutonic sovereign. Greece and 

foot of the Bavarian Alps. In certain Egypt have both contributed to the glorifi- 

old quarters of Munich may still lie cation of .Munich. The visitor iooks with 

found the quaintness and picturesque astonishment upon a palace richly ornate 

charm so characteristic of the elder with porticos and Tuscan columns, and 

German towns; and one is inclined to is told that this is tin- post-office. The 

turn to these nooks and by-streets Royal Theatre has a Corinthian peri- 

rather than to the sham splendors which style, and is adorned with frescos which 

ambitious monarchs have heaped to- depict Apollo in the midst of the Muses 

gether, with more reference to quantity nine A colossal museum, overladen 

than to quality. with decoration, frescos, and statues. 

There are views on the hanks of the and called the Maxim iliaueum, is well 

rapidly rolling Isar which are striking, stocked with good paintings, 

and it is but a short journey from Munich The people of Munich are very proud 

into the wonders of the Bavarian mouu- of their city, and are a little inclined, 

tain regions The great Ludwigsstrasse, like the worthy citizens of some of our 

or the street of palaces which the faith- western capitals, to gauge their esteem 

fill people named after its capricious by the amount of money which edifices 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



793 



cost. The Bavarian burgher may even 
be heard saying, " Such and such a 
palace is splendid; it cost an enormous 
sum." 

In what M. Tissot rather satirically 
calls the " Hellenic section " of Munich 
stands the Propylsea, a superb gate-way, 
imitated from that of the Acropolis at 
Athens, and erected at the time when 
Louis I. was indulging in fantastic vis- 
ions of the union of Greece and Bavaria. 
This monument was intended to cele- 
brate the war during which the Greeks 
threw off the Turkish yoke, and called 
to the throne King Otho I., founder of 
the Graeco-Bavarian dynasty. As fate 
would have it, the day after the inau- 
guration of the celebration of this gate- 
way the ex-monarch of (i recce came 
home to his native city of Munich to 
remain there. 

The museums known as the old ami 
new Pinakotheks and the Glyptothek 
contain line collections, which would 
have appeared to vastly better advan- 
tage had they both been united in one 
splendid structure ; and one cannot help 
wondering why the Bavarians cannot 
call them by German rather than by 
Grecian titles. Outside the city, in what 
is known as the Hall of Fame, stands a 
colossal statue of Bavaria, nearly seventy 
feet high ; and climbing up into the 
head of this monster one may look out 
through the vast apertures, which serve 
as eyes, over the city, the plain, and its 
environing mountains. Munich looks 
unreal and unsubstantial, and as if a 
great wind sweeping down from the Alps 
might blow it away. 

Stories of the old King Louis of Ba- 
varia, father of the present sovereign, 
are so well known that I shall not 
attempt to recite them anew. His artis- 
tic and amatory ambitions have been 
imitated in some measure by his sou, who 



is eccentric in a high degree, yet who is 
immensely popular among his people. 
The auniversaiy of his birthday is cele- 
brated with loyal effusion and infinite 
beer and fireworks, and the invading 
centralization of northern Germain 
does not seem likely to do away with 
the fondness for the Bavarian royal 
family. The present King Louis is of 
delicate temperament, and it is said that 
his moody and exalted condition is due 
to a disappointment in love when he was 
but a youth. This story docs not appear 
to have been conl radicted. 

The King's ruling passion at present 
is music, to which he devotes himself 
with all the ardor of a great composer. 
He is, I believe, the only monarch in 
Europe who has a whole operatic per- 
formance given for himself alone, lie 
believes in enjoying to the full the privi- 
leges of a king, and esteems it necessary 
that he should be screened from the gaze 
of the common herd whenever it pleases 
him to lie so, no matter how much this 
may annoy his subjects or what moneys 
it may cost them. Now and then he 
arrives, late at night, and without warn- 
ing to any of his servitors, at one of his 
many fantastic palaces in some pretty 
nook in the mountains or by a pleasant 
lake. In his train are musicians, singers, 
painters, and poets. A little intellectual 
court is organized: fUes are held, and, 
just, as the inhabitants of the locality 
are beginning to congratulate themselves 
on the presence of their sovereign, he 
whisks himself off with all the swiftness 
of a prince in a fairy-tale. He has long 
ago given up dreams of any political 
rdle in southern Germany; yet, unlike 
the King of Wurteinburg, he has not, in 
effacing his own importance before that 
of the dominating Prussian influence, 
run the risk of losing the respect of his 
people. When his ministers annoy hiiu 



794 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



with stories of what he must or must 
not do In' takes t<> the mountains 
and leaves them in the lurch. On one 
occasion, in 1873, in order to escape 
them, lie trotted off through the Tyrol, 
and the ministers caught his royal skirts 
just as he was disappearing into Italy. 

It is said of him that when a pale- 
faced ambassador brought to him the 
news that the Prussians were in Nurem- 
berg, and would soon march upon 
Munich, the King, who was in costume 
as one of the heroes of a Wagnerian 
libretto, showed but little agitation, and 
when the ambassador had departed sat 
down at his piano as tranquilly as if 
nothing had happened. 

The King of Bavaria was so fond of 
Wagner that he could refuse him nothing. 
On one occasion Wagner asked the King 
to tear down a whole quarter of the city, 
and build in its place a vast amphitheatre 
which would hold fifty thousand specta- 
tors; and King Louis was about to 
giant the request when a practical sub- 
ject [nit into his head the question of 
expense, and suggested that to raise 
the money would wreck the treasury of 
the kingdom. Without a monarch like 
Louis II., of Bavaria, a composer like 
Richard Wagner would have found it 
difficult, if not impossible, to carry out 
his grandiose conceptions. The great 
musical theatre of Bayreuth, with its 
scenic and orchestral effects, could 
.scarcely have been created in northern 
Germany. The old Emperor of Ger- 
many, it is said, contributed but three 
hundred thalers to the Wagner Theatre, 
while the Viceroy of Egypt alone gave 
five thousand ; but the royal treasury of 
Bavaria furnished the greater part of the 
funds. The King was delighted with 
the idea of having a musical Mecca es- 
tablished within his territory, and so soon 
as Wagner, who disliked Munich, and 
detested the citizens of Munich, because 



they criticised the King's generosity to 
him, had chosen Bayreuth as his resi- 
dence, King Louis was willing to build 
him whatsoever he wished. 

Thither came the great artists from 
Vienna, and there Hans Richter, who 
has since become so famous in London 
with his orchestra of a hundred musi- 
cians, picked from all the musical theatres 
of Germany, brought forth the master's 
weird and mystical allegories, and pa- 
raded before the eyes of the most scepti- 
cal people in the world the gods and 
goddesses of their banished Pagan my- 
thology. It was not Louis II., during 
Wagner's lifetime, who held court at 
Bayreuth: it was Wagner himself; and 
none more sincerely mourned for the 
great composer, when he finished his 
laborious and agitated life in the calm 
seclusion of Venice, than did the youth- 
ful ruler of Bavaria. 

There is one monarch who stands quite 
as high in the affections of the populace 
of Munich as King Louis, and that is 
the venerable Gambrinus, to whose court 
all classes daily repair. The breweries 
of Munich are renowned throughout 
Europe, and the drinking-halls connected 
with them offer a very curious spectacle 
when night has closed down over the 
capital. In Munich there is in the even- 
ing none of the exuberant gayety and 
vivacity of the Paris streets ; but there 
is plenty of wassail within the walls, and 
deep drinking is one of the principal 
pastimes, especially of the middle and 
lower classes. The Hof-Brau, or Royal 
Brewery, is the most popular resort in 
Munich. The citizens sometimes laugh- 
ingly observe that the Bavarian court 
has long drawn the chief of its revenues 
from the gratification of the nation's 
thirst. In former days the court re- 
ceived a very handsome annual sum from 
the privilege of supplying the rich city 
of Augsburg with water, and to-day it 



EUROTE IN STORM ASD CALM. 



795 



gets from the royal brewery a splendid 
yearly Income. 

In the sombre and ill-lighted halls of 
the brewery after nightfall the stranger 
can almost fancy that he has been trans- 
ported backwards into the Middle Ages. 
In one corner of the hall, and near the 
court-yard, through which stout serving- 
men, clad in leather, are constantly roll- 
ing fresh hogsheads, stands a huge gen- 
darme, resplendent in a brazen helmet 
and wearing immaculate white gloves 
and a handsome sabre. This is the rep- 
resentative of the royal authority, and he 
looks unmoved upon the guzzling throng 
which now and then becomes boisterous, 
but is quieted by the simple intimation 
of the presence of authority. 

Around this splendid gendarme's feet 
run rivers of beer, from the overflowing 
stone mugs which the careless drinkers 
come to fill for themselves. From time 
to time bright-faced servant girls make 
the rounds of the tallies, and collect 
from each drinker the money due from 
him. Hundreds upon hundreds of the 
working-people bring their meals to this 
place, and eat them there while they 
drink the royal beer. And what things 
the populace of Munich eats ! Nameless 
things, pretexts for eating, the French, 
the English, or the Americans would 
call them: sausages and cold meats un- 
known in other climes ; black bread, and 
strange composites of cabbage and 
onions, — the prime requisite with the 
Munich man of the people being that 
i lis stomach should be filled, it matters 
little with what kind of solid food. But 
he is vastly particular in his cups, and a 
lowering of the quality of the royal beer 
would breed a revolution in Munich 
more quickly than any tyrannical meas- 
ure of taxation. 

In October, during the great festival 
which lasts six days and six nights, all 
Munich devotes itself to the first glasses 



of the winter beer, and celebrates the 
new brewing with as much joy and cere- 
mony as it would use in saluting the 
advent of a new prince. It is said that 
during one of the October festivals in 
Munich nine hundred thousand bottles 
of beer — a bottle holding more than a 
quart — were consumed daily by the 
thirsty throng. The ordinary stein, or 
stone mug, in use in the royal brewery, 
holds much more than a quart of still 
cold beer, and is enough quite to turn 
the head of a stranger accustomed to 
moderation in drink. 

In the towns the Bavarian populations 
are sceptical, although great outward 
attention is paid to all the Catholic forms 
of religion. In the mountain regions 
the Catholicism is as deep and earnest, as 
firmly engrafted in the manners of the 
people as it was five or six centuries 
ago ; and the gentle wood-cutters of the 
pretty mountain district in which stands 
the village of Ober-Ammergau have 
called the attention of the whole world 
to their devotion by the periodical pro- 
duction of the Passion Play. The war 
in 1870 interfered to prevent the repre- 
sentation of the Mystery Play in that 
year, but in 1871 the wood-carvers, who 
had done good service in the army, were 
back again in their homes and gave the 
Bible story with their usual realistic 
power. In 1881 the play was again pre- 
sented, and so every ten years will be 
given to the world, in solemn fulfilment 
of the vow made by the peasants of 
Ober-Ammergau long ago, in the hope 
that their devotion might save them 
from the pestilence which had shown its 
hideous face in their smiling valley. 

The representation of 1881 was in 
many respects more striking than any 
which had preceded it at Ober-Ammergau 
during this century, and I have set down 
my own impressions of it in the following 
chapter. 



796 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETY-ONE. 

The Passion-Play at Obcr-Ammergau. — Tlie Theatre of the Passion.— Old Miracle Plays.— The Chorus 
:it Ober-Ammergau. — Bavarian Wood-carvers is Actors. — The Personator of the Saviour. — 
Caiaphas. — Tlie Figures of Peter and Judas. — The Women Interpreters of the Passion. — The 
I leparture from Bethany, and the Last Supper. — Comments of a Distinguished American Actor. — 
The Scourging ami the Crown of Thorns. — The Despair of Judas. — Effective Portrayal of the 
Judgment and Crucifixion. — A Beautiful, Holy, and Noble Dramatic Sketch of the Most Wonderful 
Life and Death. 



THE rain was falling when we awoke, 
on :i September morning, in Ober- 
Ammergau, and the sky indicated that 
settled weather could not be expected. 
But fortunately we were provided with 
covered scats in the theatre, and could 
therefore afford to smile at the clouds. 
We locked at the clock, and found that 
it was seven. A neat-handed maiden 
served us with a light breakfast, and at 
this early hour she had to hasten away 
to the theatre, where she was to appear 
as •• one of tlie crowd " in tin early scene. 
By the time breakfast was over tlie rain 
had ceased, but the clouds threatened to 
give us more of it at any moment. We 
took our umbrellas and tramped across 
the meadows to the village street, and 
thence to the theatre. 

The Crown Prince was there before 
us. and the crowds were saluting him 
with shouts of "Hoch! Hoch ! " Sent 

up tit regular intervals, and somewhat 
as if they had been told to do it just so 
many times. Friederich Wilhelm got 
into his place presently, and then we 
were permitted to climb along some 
wooden stair-ways and passages, and tit 
last to gain our places in the covered 

lodges. 

The theatre of the Passion, tit Ober- 
Ammergau, is very spacious and solid. 
1 should think that more than six thou- 
sand people can get into it, and there are 



five thousand seats. It is so arranged 
that every person in it can see the stage 
perfectly. Although built of common 
planks, without any especial attempt at 
decoration, it is exquisitely clean, and 
perfectly comfortable. Sitting in the 
reserved places, under cover, one looks 
down upon the open space, in which 
three thousand persons can sit. and do 
sit at every performance, no matter 
whether it rains or not. The reserved 
seats l'ise in rows, like those of an am- 
phitheatre in a lecture-room or a circus. 
The most expensive places tire farther 
from the stage than the least expensive 
ones, and I think they tire preferable, 
because the illusion is heightened by 
being somewhat removed from the actors 
in the pious drama. 

The stage is the most remarkable feat- 
ure of the theatre. It consists of a 
vast proscenium, which is open to the 
sky ; of a central stage, inclosed with a 
portico of Roman form, and "practica- 
ble" doors and balconies on either side 
of the middle in which the curtain rises. 
On either side of this central curtain 
there are sets of streets, which run back 
a long distance, and which are quite as 
spacious as many of the real streets in 
Jerusalem. When, therefore, the cur- 
tain of the central stage is raised and 
the scene inside it is set to represent a 
street, one has belore him a very good 



EUROTK TN STORM AXD CALM. 



797 



picture of the interior of Jerusalem. 
When it is necessary to represent a tab- 
leau in a scene in the drama which de- 
mands but a small place, then only the 
central stage is used. The old mystery 
stage consisted of nine compartments ; 
the ancient classic theatre of Greece had 
the same arrangement of proscenium 
which the villagers of Ober-Ammergau 
have adopted. Doubtless they have ex- 
cellent traditions upon which to found 
their present manner of arranging their 
stage. They manage it so as to get the 
very best scenic effects with the smallest 
machinery. For example, the spectator, 
when lie first sits down to look at the 
scene, sees the balcony and a door on 
either side of the curtain, and at first 
fancies that they are placed there as or- 
naments. But he is agreeably surprised 
when, in the progress of the play, he 
finds that one of them represents the 
balcony of Pontius Pilate, and the other 
one that above the palace of Annas. 
Probably the monks of the monastery of 
Ettal or of some of the other institutions 
in the valley possessed accurate records 
of the manner in which mysteries at all 
epochs have been represented, and how 
long these representations have been 
popular. 

As early as 1110 Geoff ray, n Norman, 
wrote a mystery play called " Saint Cath- 
erine." He had many successors and 
imitators, some of them writing produc- 
tions which required seven or eight days 
for their complete representation, like 
the plays of the Chinese, who repre- 
sent the stories of their gods and heroes. 
One play in the Middle Ages undertook 
to represent the whole of scripture his- 
tory, and lasted rather more than a week. 
The famous Coventry mystery, which be- 
gan with tin' Creation and ended with 
a representation of the Judgment Day, 
must have been one of this class. The 



passion of Christ and the slaughter of the 
Innocents were among the subjects most 
commonly represented. The name "mys- 
tery " appears to have been given to this 
order of play because it taught the doc- 
trinesof Christianity, which in the Middle 
Ages were always considered in the high- 
est degree mysterious. The origin of the 
theatre in France, and indeed, in the whole 
of Europe, dates from the introduction of 
these mysteries in the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries. The Comedie-Fran- 
caise was founded on the ruins of a 
privilege once accorded to the Confrerie 
de In Passion, so-called because they rep- 
resented the closing scenes in the life of 
Jesus. In the early days the mysteries 
were never considered by any class of 
people as an amusement, but rather as 
solemnities ; it was only with degraded 
manners and a dissolute age that tnounte- 
bankery was added. 

The Ober-Ammergau people have done 
wisely in banishing from their version of 
the Passion anything like the grotesque 
or vulgar. Thirty or forty years ago they 
were wont to represent Judas as torn open 
and disembowelled by demons ; but now 
they would not tolerate any such thing 
on their stage. When the mysteries 
first began, the services in churches in 
France were shortened, in order that 
people might attend them. Thus the 
Church directly encouraged the theatre 
as a growing institution worthy of pat- 
ronage. But in the course of time they 
degenerated, particularly in France, into 
something dangerously like travesty. In 
the mysteries represented in the Trinity 
Hospital and in the Hotel de Bourgogne, 
a view of heaven was given with God 
the Father seated on a throne and sur- 
rounded by angels. I have myself seen a 
representationof the interior of heaven on 
the stage of the Porte St. Martin theatre 
in Paris. Hell was figured by a huge pit 



798 



EUROPE J.V STORM AXD CALM. 



in the centre of the stage, out of which 
large and little devils arose from time to 
time; and heaven was supported by lofty 
scaffoldings. Tin: actors, when they fin- 
ished their parts, did not retire from the 
stage, but sat down on benches at the side, 
in full view of the audience, and waited 
for their "cues" to summon them once 
mere into action. Not so much attention 
was paid to historical truth in those days 
as now. In a mystery of the Middle Ages, 
Herod is represented as a Pagan, and 
Pilate as a Mohammedan. But to-day 
the ( >ber-Amruergau peasants are scrupu- 
lously careful to have all their properties 
in accordance with the historical record. 
One looks in vain for anachronisms in 
their play. In old times after the scene 
of the crucifixion, a ludicrous dance of 
devils, or something similar, was given 
to put the spectators in good-humor 
again. But now such a tiling would he 
looked upon as a sacrilege. The peasants 
sit silent, with streaming eyes and trem- 
bling lips, after the curtain has fallen up- 
on the crowning woe of the sacrifice of 
Christ. Certainly it is better, in the in- 
terests of both religion and art, that no 
buffoonery should intrude upon the touch- 
ing and tender story of the Passion. 

Victor Hugo's lively description of 
the mystery called " The Good Judg- 
ment of the Virgin Mary," in the first 
hook of "Notre Dame," is doubtless 
familiar to thousands of American 
readers. Hugo shows that buffoonery 
was still in full force in the mysteries 
and moralities at the close of the fifteenth 
century. And who does not remember 
Voltaire's pleasant description of the 
mystery which Milton saw when in his 
youth he was travelling in Italy, and 
which became the germ of the immortal 
poem of '-Paradise Lost"? This 
mystery, which was produced in Milan, 
was called " Adam, or Origiual Sin," 



was written by one Andreino, and dedi- 
cated to Maria Do Medieis. The subject 
was the fall of man. The actors were 
the Eternal, the devil, the angels, Adam, 
Eve, the serpent, death, and the seven 
deadly sins. At the close of the play, 
these sins danced a break-down with the 
devil, and produced roars of laughter. 
Milton was so much excited by the 
sober anil solemn part of the play that 
he at once began a tragedy, in which 
Satan and the angels fallen from Heaven 
appear, and actually wrote an act and a 
half of it before he gave it up. 

Some of these things we remembered, 
as we sat looking out over the high wall 
at the right of the stage upon the green 
meadow and the great uplift of moun- 
tain, or gazing down at the four thou- 
sand heads which were ranged in 
regular order below us. There were all 
our peasant friends of the previous day ; 
they had slept somewhere over night, ami 
were now waiting impatiently for the be- 
ginning. On the left was an orchestra 
sufficiently large to produce a proper 
effect in the vast iiielosure. The musi- 
cians were playing an overture, which 
had many claims to merit, above all, a 
gentle harmony which seemed full of 
reverence and peace, we'll calculated to 
prepare the mind for the scenes to come. 
The sound of a cannon-shot was heard; 
it was the signal that the play was to 
begin ; and the procession of the chorus 
marched slowly and solemnly upon the 
stage. This chorus consists of eighteen 
singers, whose duty it is to announce the 
tableaux to he shown, then to fall back 
on either side of the stage when the cur- 
tain rises, and when it falls, once more 
to come forward and chant the moral. 
When the whole space is needed for 
action, as in processions, etc., the sing- 
ers retire iu single file, nine on each side, 
as they entered. They are persons of 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



799 



commanding figure, and with sweet and 
harmonious voices. The leader of the 
chorus is required to make very great ex- 
ertion, for if he did not his single voice 
could scarcely be heard by a large i >< >r- 
tion of the immense audience. Some of 
the women have graceful figures, but 
none of them are pretty. Their gestures 
and attitude while singing show the re- 
sults of rather formal training. But 
they serve on the whole admirably to till 
up the intervals between the tableaux 
and dramatic action, and toward the 
close of the mystery their music rises to 
the height of veritable eloquence. 

Behind the curtain in the central 
stage, for a few minutes before the 
first tableau is shown, all the actors 
and actresses kneel in silent prayer. 
This is never omitted, although they 
have already attended mass at six 
o'clock. After the prayer each one 
noiselessly disperses to his or her place, 
the curtain rises as the chorus finishes, 
announcing the subject to be displayed, 
and falls back, and the audience is 
shown "the fall." — -the expulsion of 
Adam and Eve from Eden. 

And, before proceeding to comment 
upon the various parts of this singularly 
impressive religious drama, it may be 
well to remark that the ardor which the 
Ober-Ammergau peasants have displayed 
in their endeavors to show the connec- 
tion between the Old Testament and 
the New is a constant and the only 
drawback to the perfection of the 
" mystery." The peasants, on the con- 
trary, believe that the chief importance 
of their work lies in the establishment 
of this connection, and here and there 
they have most lamentably strained the 
law and the prophets, in order to perfect, 
to their own satisfaction, the analogy. 
By means, too, of these tableaux from 
the Old Testament, they detract from 



the dramatic unity and the impressive 
beauty of the scenes from the New. 
The more thoroughly to appreciate this, 
let any one who has been at Ober- 
Ammergau during the summer remem- 
ber how wonderfully he was impressed 
by that .section of the Passion-Play 
which portrays the wanderings and trials 
of Christ from the time he enters .Je- 
rusalem until, having taken leave of the 
people, after driving the money-changers 
from the Temple, he retires with his dis- 
ciples to Bethany. There is a solid, 
coherent bit of drama, exquisitely pre- 
sented, and if the story were carried 
straight on. without any interference of 
Old Testament history, the result would 
lie vastly more imposing. Of course, 
the gentle wood-carvers and housewives 
of Ober-Ammergau, if asked to change 
in any manner the arrangement of the 
mystery, would reply with a " Nbn 
Possumus," from which there would be 
no appeal. 

The first two tableaux, which are 
symbolical of the fall of man and the 
redemption, are not especially impres- 
sive. Adam and Eve, in flesh-colored 
tights and garments of skins, have :i 
very theatrical look. The angel with 
the flaming sword looks like a rather 
robust young woman, dressed in blue 
and white. There is nothing whatever 
aerial or angelic about her, and the 
serpent twining round the apple-tree is 
suggestive of papier machi. But the 
solemn chant of the chorus is touching, 
and thoroughly explains the idea which 
the author of the mystery had in his 
mind : — 

" Dock von Feme von Calvarias Hohen. 
Leuchtet durch die Nacht ein Morgengliihin 
Aus des Kreuz baumes Zweigen Wehen. 

Friedensl'dfte durch die Welten hin." 

The second tableau represents a host 



800 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



of little children, dressed in white, kneel- 
ing at the foot of the cross. Some of 
these village babes arc attired as angels. 
This is pretty, but il gives one, as a pri- 
mary impression, a feeling of disappoint- 
ment, destined, fortunately, to pass 
away almost immediately. The chorus 
inarches slowly, with trailing robes and 
solemn step, off from the stage to lefl 
and right, and the curtain in the centre 
is once more lowered. Here the illusion 
once more seizes upon the beholder, nor 
docs it leave him readily. He has 
before him two streets, right and left, 
and these have suddenly been peopled 
with men. women, and children, in 
bright Oriental costumes. Little children 
run lo and fro, uttering joyful cries 
and waving palm-branches ; grave elders 
advance slowly, conversing together 
<>n some event of marked importance; 
and the women are wild with joy. 
Down the central street and under a 
frowning gate-way they come; men 
uprise from bazaar and stall to join 
them, and presently one sees (I know 
thai in my own case it was with a joyful 
emotion, which 1 should have been at a 
loss to analyze) the figure of the Sav- 
iour mounted upon an ass. moving 
forward in the midst of his disciples. 
The impression of reality is greatly 
heightened by (lie leisurely manner in 
which this scene is enacted. Everything 
moves as naturally as in real life; and 
the crowd increases so rapidly that il is 
difficult lor one to persuade himself that 
In is not witnessing a genuine outpour- 
ing from a glad capital's streets. 

Arrived on the proscenium, the Sav- 
iour alights, and conies forward grace- 
fully and with humility. He doe- nol 
shrink from the homage bestowed, but 
implies by his gestures that it is not 
for himself, hut for a higher power of 
which he is only the instrument. As he 



pauses in the midst of his disciples, and 
utters, while the hosaunas of the multi- 
tude are dying away, those memorable 
words, '• The hour is come that the Son 
of Man should be glorified. Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, except a corn of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
abideth alone; hut if it die, it bring- 
eth forth much fruit," his figure is 
instinct with gracious piety. Joseph 
Maier, who personates the Saviour, is of 
good stature and remarkably line figure ; 
his face, although not very spiritual in 
repose, has, when he is speaking, some 
pathetic lines; his features arc not so 
distinctly Oriental as were those of his 
predecessor, Tobias Flunger, hut his 
pose is noble, and his long black hair 
and his symmetrical beard add to his 
prophet-like appearance. In his simple 
robes he walks like one who feels the 
dignity of an inspired mission, yet who 
is keenly sensible of his humanity. 
There are five hundred persons on the 
stage in this remarkable scene, and 1 
think it is safe to say that not one of 
them appears awkward or ill at case, so 
perfect has every one's training been. 
The high-priests and a group of Phari- 
sees approach, looking wonderingly at 
this strange central figure, with its sweet 
resonant voice, its gentle gestures, and 
its mildness. 

The curtain of the central stage rises, 
dis, losing the interior of the Temple, 
with the money-changers trailing across 
their tables and with the hubbub of 
traffic rising among the sacred columns. 
The Saviour looks at this scene of pro- 
fanity for a time, then folds his hands 
and hows his head in silent prayer. 
When his prayer is finished, he advances 
to tlic Temple, utters the famous protest, 
anil asks the priests how they can look 
on silently and see such sacrilege. 
"Who is this man?" cry the money- 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



801 



changers and the priests. "It is the 
great prophet from Nazareth," answers 
the crowd, and meantime Jesus, ad- 
vancing among the frightened traders, 
catches up a rope which had been used 
to bind lambs for the sacrifice and 
s sourges the men forth. This is done 
in most realistic fashion ; the tables are 
overturned; the money-changers grovel 
in their gold ; L 'the seats of them that 
sold doves " are upset, and the birds 
flutter away in all directions. At this 
juncture, Caiaphas flies iuto a great rage, 
and makes several passionate addresses 
to the people. Sadoe. of the Council, 
demands Christ's authority for his inter- 
ference. Moses is invoked as the only 
true prophet, and the Pharisees and 
priests are doing their best to inflame the 
people's minds against the new prophet, 
when Jesus and his disciples depart for 
Bethany. One view of this superb scene, 
which from first to last contains nothing 
that can offend the susceptibilities of 
the most reverent spectator, is more 
useful in fixing forever in the mind the 
mournful story than a hundred readings 
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It 
sticks in the mind as a bit of masterly 
painting does. 

Caiaphas is an important personage 
in the Passion-Play. He makes, I think, 
the longest speeches, and his stately 
figure, in its rich garments, moves 
to and fro through the piece with great 
effect. Caiaphas is played by Johann 
Lang, who, I believe, was once the 
Burgomaster of Ober-Ammergau. He 
has a grand head, and the priestly coif- 
fure brings out all the good points in his 
face to great advantage. The disciples 
are almost without exception very sat- 
isfactorily represented. If any failed, 
it was John, who did not quite seem to 
reach our ideal of the beloved one. But 
tiie figures of Peter and Judas had a 



strange fascination for me. They are 
reproductions from the '■ old masters'" 
conceptions of those disciples, and they 
have by long practice become astonish- 
ingly proficient in movement and group- 
ing, so as constantly to remind one of 
the paintings from which the modern 
Christian world has formed its ideal. 

There was an atmosphere of quaint- 
ness, of rough, commonplace greed, 
about Judas, which never deserted him, 
not even in the moment of his suicide. 

The acting of the Apostles is emi- 
nently realistic, at least it was when I 
saw them; there was no ranting, no 
whining, no ostentation. These were 
real men ; every spectator felt it. Jacob 
Ilett, who personates Peter, and Leeh- 
ner, who is Judas — for lie is so natural 
that no one can conceive of him as acting 
— arc, like Maier, wood-carvers. Ilett's 
specialty is the production of small cru- 
cifixes, and Lechner is very skilful in 
the same line. A lady friend told me 
that she was lodged at the house of 
Judas, and that he worked late at his 
carving-bench on the night before the 
performance. 

Judas, as represented in this mystery, 
awakens a feeling of compassion. It is 
impossible to consider him as anything 
else than the unwitting victim of a su- 
preme power, singled out to bring on the 
great sacrifice. He is wordy, is poor 
Judas, on the road to Bethany, although 
he tries his best not to be so. His belly 
is empty ; the cool night-air of the 
mountains trouble him, and he is afraid 
of coming catastrophe. When he 
repents of his mighty crime, and, in 
agony of grief and humiliation, throws 
thi 1 sack containing the pieces of silver 
at the foot of the vile tribunal into 
whose merciless keeping he has sold his 
Lord, the whole public feels a vast pity 
for him. When Judas was playing this 



802 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



scene on the day that I saw the Passion- 
Play, a thick, heavy rain-storm was pour- 
ing (in the lir:uls of the three thousand 
peasants and other unfortunate people 

who were ill the uncovered seats; lmt 
not one individual arose to leave his or 
her seat. Judas held them all by the pas- 
sionate natural vehemence of his acting. 
Even in the little question, "Is it I?" 
at the Last Supper, there is a note of 
human anguish, which does not fail to 
start responsive tears in the eves of the 
spectators. But I am proceeding a little 
too far ahead. 

From the moment that the anger of 
the priests and money-changers is 
aroused, Christ's doom is clearly fore- 
shadowed in every part of the mystery 
until the end comes. After the scene 
in the Temple the chorus returns, and 
sings the prelude to a tableau which 
discloses the sons of Jacob conspiring 
against their brother Joseph; and a 
moment after, n second tableau, portray- 
ing the wicked brethren as about to 
cast Joseph into the well on the plain 
of Dothan, is shown. These are .sup- 
posed to be emblematical of the perse- 
cution which Christ was doomed later 
to suffer. They are more vigorously 
conceived ami richly dressed than the 
preceding ones from the Old Testament, 
lint when the central curtain rises ami 
displays the magnificent "set" of the 
Sanhedrim, in which the high-priests 
of the synagogue are discussing meas- 
ures to be taken against the prophet of 
Nazareth, one cannot help regretting 
that the unity of the action is inter- 
rupted by tableaux. 

This Sanhedrim scene is very realistic. 
Caiaphas in superb dress, with his breast- 
plate ornamented with twelve precious 
stones, presides. Annas, rolled in white, 
sits near lain, and the others are ranged 
around the rooms in tribunes. The dis- 



cussion is long and stormy. The money- 
changers are sent for, and come in to 
suggest a vindictive programme. One 
of them announces that he thinks ho 
knows a disciple who will betray the 
prophet. At this statement the Sanhe- 
drim breaks up joyfully, ami the curtain 
falls, leaving the spectator impressed 
with the reality of a seem.' which has 
been enacted on a rude stage in a 
meadow in an obscure mountain region. 
Then come two other intrusive tab- 
leaux, one showing young Tobias taking 
leave of his parents, and the other the 
Mourning Bride of the Canticles. These 
arc intended to lead the minds of the 
audience up to the scene of the depart- 
ure of Christ from Bethany and his 
leave-taking of his mother. And now 
Christ and his disciples appear in pict- 
uresque procession before the house of 
Simon. Here the illusion of Oriental- 
ism is well sustained. The gestures of 
those who come to invite Christ to 
cuter the banquet-room, their costumes, 
their gait, all are grave, Eastern, and 
filled with a certain (juaintness which 
is not without its force. It was in this 
scene in Simon's house, as it seemed to 
me, that Joseph Maier, as the person- 
ator of Christ, achieved one of his prin- 
cipal triumphs. Here he was the man, 
suffering from fatigue, from persecu- 
tion, from a foreboding of the trial to 
come ; but his presence was noble ami 
his dignity noticeable. Just as he has 
seated himself, and while Martha is 
waiting upon the hungry and tired dis- 
ciples, .Mary Magdalen, whom the 
Ober-Ammergau dramatists consider 
as the same as Mary the sister of 
Martha, rushes in, and throwing herself 
at the feet of Jesus, proceeds to anoint 
them with costly ointment. When the 
woman kneels before him, Maier cries out 
"Maria!" and rises with that startled, 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



803 



deprecatory air which any pine and noble 
man would put on when finding himself 
adored by beauty. I thought it a real 
stroke of genius. But when Judas 
comes shuffling forward in his dirty 
yellow gown, and tries to quarrel with 
the Magdalen for wasting so much 
money in ointment, and the actor arises, 
saying, " Let her alone, she hath 
wrought a good work on me," the con- 
trast from meekness to sudden assump- 
tion of authority is exceedingly striking. 
I think that Simon and his family 
as actors would put to shame a good 
many stock actors in our minor theatres. 
It is true that they have the traditions 
of two hundred and fifty years, during 
which this Mystery Play, in one form 
or another, has been carried on, to help 
them ; but, eveu with that inheritance, 
it is odd that they should be so clear, 
remote as they are from the refining 
and educating influences of any large 
theatre. I suspect, however, that 
neither the leading nor the minor char- 
acters in the "Mystery" would thank 
us for praising them as actors. They 
are filled with the idea that the func- 
tions which they perforin are religious, 
and they at all times think more of the 
religion than of the art. It is very 
evident that all the peasants and the 
mass of Catholic German visitors to 
the Passion share this feeling. 

The Passion-Play is not fortunate in 
its women interpreters. She who plays 
Mary is sincere, and avoids any very 
sharp criticism, but her acting nowhere 
rises to the level of that shown by the 
personators of Caiaphas, Peter, and 
Judas. The only scenp in which it ap- 
peared to me that Mary was sufficiently 
effective was in the meeting with the 
Saviour as he is about to leave Bethany. 
Joseph Maier has a rich, melodious voice ; 
perhaps there is a slight tinge of 



artificiality in its pathos, but in general 
it was very agreeable ; and when he mur- 
murs in the ear of the kneeling mother 
" How am I prepared to consecrate my 
work of atonement?" I saw many a 
tearful face around me. The tears arise 
unbidden at the sight of this Bible made 
flesh, this living and breathing New 
Testament. I know that as I sat gazing 
at this scene, a vision of my childhood 
arose before me, — the old school-house 
with its worn benches, the tender breeze 
of a New England summer morning that 
swayed the delicate petals of the flow- 
ers on the teacher's desk, and the soft 
voices of the scholars as they read the 
snered book. If my youthful imagi- 
nation had been touched and tired by 
such scenes as this Passion-Play eon- 
tains, how tremendously vital would 
have been my memory of every slightest 
circumstance in the mysterious an 1 holy 
drama which began at the Temple and 
ended at Calvary ! But would a Passion- 
Play lie possible among the New Eng- 
land hills? Mary, in an agony of grief, 
beseeches her son not to risk his pre- 
cious life, and the women with her join 
with Simon in urging her to enter the 
latter's house, and to repose. This scene 
never fails to produce immense effect; 
and its climax is found, as the curtain 
falls, in the sombre attitude of Judas, 
who is still meditating over the squan- 
dering of money by the Magdalen on 
the ointment, and who mutters, '• Those 
three hundred pence that she spent 
would have been enough for me. With 
them I could have lived content." 

And so the holy drama moves stead- 
ily on. The little band of disciples, hud- 
dled around the Master, goes back to 
Jerusalem. It is useless to attempt a 
description of all the pictures which fol- 
low one another in rapid succession 
until the famous sceue of the Last Sup- 



804 



EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 



per li reached. Tlic Old Testament 
tableau, which is supposed to prefigure 
Christ's rejection of the Jews as a pun- 
ishment of their sins, is that <>f Ahasu- 
eius putting away Yashti and taking 
Esther in her stead. '1 his flits away 
like the memory of a dream, and while 
the leader of the chorus is still address- 
ing his warning to Jerusalem, our atten- 
tion is invited to a group upon the brow 
of the Mount of Olives. In the distance 
lies the Holy City, over the unhappy per- 
versity of which the Master weeps. 

Here occurs a very dramatic scene, 
amply and nobly written out in dramatic 
form, wherein the disciples learn that 
Christ goes towar.ls his doom, and en- 
deavor to dissuade him from it. At 
last Peter and John are sent forward to 
prepare the feast of the Passover, and 
Judas, who i •> afraid to go t > Jerusalem, 
and is selfishly anxious that the Master 
should provide for his sustenance, in- 
dulges in a long and powerful soliloquy, 
in which avarice and conscience struggle 
for the mastery. Meantime, the spies 
of the Sanhedrim and the money-changers 
arrive, and Judas falls an easy prey to 
their propositions, lie stifles his better 
nature, and rushes wildly off to Jerusa- 
lem, there to watch his chance for the 
Master's betrayal. This scene is pre- 
sented with a graphic force and intensity 
which never fails to impress the spec- 
tutor-;. The money-changers are in grim 
earnest., Judas's anguish of mind is real, 
and, were manifestations of applause 
allowed in the theatre, there is no doubt 
that there would be plenty of them aL 
this point in the mystery. 

The next scene shows Peter and John 
seeking out the house of Mark in Jeru- 
salem, — a line little bit of realism, — 
intelligently acted, with an immense 
amount of detail : and then comes the 
act of the Last Supper, prefaced by per- 



haps the finest Old Testament tableau, in 
the Passion-Play, — the sending down of 
manna to the Israelites in the wilder- 
ness. In this living picture one hun- 
dred and fifty children and nearly twice 
that number of grown persons are en- 
gaged. Moses and Aaron occupy prom- 
inent positions in the foreground ; youths, 
maidens, mothers with bains in arms, 
all are stretching out their hands or 
raisiiig their eyes thankfully to heaven, 
from whence the manna gently descends 
like snow. A second tableau, showing 
the spies returning from the Promised 
band, follows this superb one. 

It is said that all those persons whose 
religious feelings are somewhat aroused 
against the performance of the sacred 
ceremony of the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper on the stage, go away with their 
objections removed after they have seen 
the Passion-Play ; for, in this part of 
(he Passion, Joseph Maier and those 
who surround him are entitled to the 
highest praise. They do not fall short 
of the mark ; their work lias a sacred 
quality in it,. A tremendous sincerity 
underlies their every action. The cur- 
tain rises on the hall in Mark's house, 
and as the disciples enter and group 
themselves at the table, it is easy to see 
at a glance that they reproduce Leo- 
nardo da Vinci's noted picture. Every 
attitude is closely reproduced ; Peter 
sits on the i ight, John on the left of the 
Saviour. The ceremonv of the distribu- 
tion of the bread and the wine ;:; ;:::•- 
formed with the greatest dignity and 
sweetness by Joseph Maier. This re- 
markable scene lasts more than half an 
hour, and th : aggregation of detail in it 
is so enormous that it burns itself into 
the senses as real. The washing of the 
disciples' feet by the J ' iter is done in 
the most reverent ma or. That these 
men should be able, .mday after Sun- 



EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 



805 



clay, to go through this ceremony without 
fatigue or blunder, with grace and rev- 
erence, and with spiritual enthusiasm, 
proves that they feel a certain consecra- 
tion for the work. The peasants in the 
audience take most intense interest in 
this supper; its representation is an act 
of high religion for them. The old 
women, with tear-stained faces, gaze at 
the form of the Saviour bending over 
the feet of Peter, and when they hear 
the apostle say, "•Thou shalt never wash 
my feet," and hear Christ answer, " If I 
wash thee not, thou hast no part with 
me," thay are terribly moved. While 
the foot-washing is in progress, soft 
music is heard, and singers intone a 
hymn. The communion is celebrated 
next, and some little relief is afforded 
to the audience, which has been spell- 
bound, while the sacred bread and wine 
are given by Christ to the disciples, 
when Judas receives the sop and rushes 
confusedly from the chamber. Perhaps 
the liest feature of this part of the Pas- 
sion is the affliction of the disciples when 
the Master has given the cup. and says. 
" As often as ye do this, doit in remem- 
brance of mc." They show their fears 
that he is to be taken from them, and 
,lohn lays his head upon the Saviour's 
breast, while Judas sits moodily eying 
the dishes on the table. This is most 
happily conceived. 

The betrayal follows in a series of 
weird pictures which arc like relievos. 
Eacli one embodies an important inci- 
dent. The curtain rises to show us 
J( sepli sold to the Midianites for twenty 
'pieccsof silver, — type of the action which 
Judas is about to commit. This scene 
is prepared with great care ; the costumes 
of the Midianites, the heads of the camels 
appearing through the fo'iage of the 
o;isis, the attitude of young Joseph stand- 
ing stripped of his coat of many colors, 



and endeavoring to defend himself from 
the brutality of hh brethren. Every- 
thing in the living picture is studied with 
perfect attention to truth. This vanishes, 
and the chorus closes in to sing a quaint 
reproof to Judas, who is about to follow 
the example of the wicked brethren. 

And now the tribunal of the Sanhe- 
drim appears once more before us ; 
Caiaphas and Annas are addressing the 
council in the most violent manner, and 
demand that the Galilean be put lo death 
as soon as he is captured. The discus- 
sion which ensues is eminently natural ; 
and when Nieodemus and Joseph of 
Arimathea utter their famous protests, 
and step down from their seats, de- 
claring that they will have nothing 
to do with the deed of blood, a thrill 
inns through the vast audience. Judas 
arrives, accompanied by the, money- 
changers, and the money which is to pay 
for the betrayal is counted out to him. 
The figure of the old man in his yellow 
gown, trying each piece on one of the 
tables of the Temple, and then placing it 
in the bag at his side, is sinister and re- 
pulsive. Joseph and Nieodemus are 
reviled by the priests, and the council 
breaks up with cries for the blood of the 
prophet who has dared to interfere with 
the corrupt practices in the Temple. 
Next we are shown Adam digging to get 
h ; s bread by the sweat of his brow, and 
Joab giving Amasa a kiss while he 
plunges a dagger into his heart, Adam's 
toil typifying Gethsemane, and Joab the 
treachery of Judas's kiss. 

The great space of the proscenium is 
used with effect in a host of by-play 
which adds immensely to the realism. 
For instance, just before we are shown 
the scena in Gethsemane's Garden, we 
see the betrayer and a delegation of 
priests, escorted by a line of Roman sol- 
diers, pass silently across the stage. 



806 



EUROTE IX STORM AXI) CALM. 



Then the curtain rises upon the Mount 
of Olives, and the Saviour, accompanied 
by his weary disciples, appears. Peter, 
James, and John are to watch with the 
Man of Sorrows, but they one by one 
fall asleep, and the Redeemer is left 
alone with his prayer. Maier's acting 
her- is full of strong self-control ; it is 
never sensational, but always simple and 
natural in the highest degree. The tradi- 
tions of the mystery demand that blood 
should l>e seen flowing down the Saviour's 
cheeks at the close of his mournful cry, 
" Take away this cup from me ; neverthe- 
less, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." 
The figure kneeling on the rocks, with 
hands outstretched in supplication, and 
with an angel hovering above it, docs 
not move when the clash of arms is 
heard, and the betrayer arrives, lint 
the disciples huddle together in con- 
sternation. Out of the darkness sud- 
denly spring the lights of torches and 
lanterns, and Judas, advancing, greets 
the Saviour and kisses him. When Christ 
declares himself, the soldiers fall to the 
ground, dropping their spears, and the 
priests and traders are in commotion ;but 
presently Malchus, with his comrades, 
conies to bind Christ. Peter strikes his 
noted blow of defense, but is rebuked by 
the Saviour, when the soldiers brutally 
push the captive, forward, and march off 
into the night with him. These soldiers 
are played with considerable skill by vil- 
lagers who have hud long training. Their 
dress, their weapons, and their manners, 
have been made the subjects of careful 
research. They give wonderful character 
to their trifling rdles. 

With the departure of Jesus in the 
bonds of his captors, and the lamen- 
tations of Peter and John, who have 
shrunk away from following their Lord 
and Master, the first part of the Passion- 
Play closes, and the spectator, after three 



and a half hour-; of close attention, is 
not sorry to get into the street and to 
rest his brain from the sombre impres- 
sions of the last few scenes. The thou- 
sands of people hasten away in all direc- 
tions to their dinners. At table, in the 
hotels, one is served by a Midianite ; has 
his boots blacked by one of the sons of 
Jacob, and his coat brushed by a Roman 
soldier; a Jewish maiden brings him a 
glass of beer; a priest hires a carriage 
in which to leave town at the close of 
the afternoon's performance; and Judas 
goes to take a look at his wood-carving. 

The peasantry, on the day that 1 was 
present, were soaked with rain, and this 
doubtless accounted for the fact that 
during the intermission, on the plan of 
similict shnUibus, they drank enormous 
quantities of beer. Most of them con- 
tented themselves with frugal meals of 
bread and sausage, and were back in 
their places long before the cannon fired. 

The second half of the Passion-Play is 
unquestionably the most impressive, al- 
though it seems to me that no other por- 
tion of the mystery is so finely executed 
as that embracing the departure from 
Bethany and the Last Supper. But the 
interest is so concentrated in the second 
part upon the meek, shrinking, pathetic 
figure of Christ, that one thinks of little 
else. From the moment of the arrest, in 
the garden of Gethsemane, Ilerr Maier 
personifies the Saviour as the sufferer 
for the sins of the world ; he is as clay 
in the hands of the potter ; his slender 
form bends beneath the blows which it 
receives; his face is pale ; his limbs are 
weak : but he is of majestic sweetness and 
noble in his humility. After having seen 
him in this character 1 renounced all 
idea of a private interview with him, 
fearing that 1 might be shocked at the 
contrast between the man's private life, 
however good it might be, and the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



807 



marked excellence of his assumption of 
the Saviour's character in the Passion- 
Play. 

A distinguished — the most distin- 
guished — American actor, who visited 
the Passion-Play this summer, professed 
a certain sense of disappointment. 
lie was prodigal of compliments for 
the marvellous picturesqueness and force 
displayed by the peasantry in their act- 
ing and their use of costumes; but that 
they were men of genius he was inclined 
to deny. "In fact," he said with a 
smile. " we had had our minds so worked 
up by the gorgeous accounts furnished 
of this play that we were prepared to ln- 
contented with nothing less than the 
supernatural." He argued that it was 
impossible, also, for an actor, in looking 
on at this spectacle, to take a non-pro- 
fessional view of it, and to forget that 
the players in the great morality aim to 
be devotional rather than anything else. 
I should not like to have it said that I 
have exaggerated the merits of the 
mystery. But doubtless the imagination 
plays a powerful part, when one re- 
cords his impressions of this curious 
mosaic wrought together on the bare 
boards of a theatre with such loving 
care and patience. 

In the afternoon the performance 
began at one o'clock, on the day when I 
witnessed it, and it was rather amusing 
to see the discomfited peasants hasten- 
ing back, with their bread and cheese in 
their hands and the water dripping from 
their garments. The chorus sang, 
Begonnen ist der Kumpf der Schmer- 
zen, and the piteous story was brought 
promptly before us. First Christ was 
haled before Annas, and here the 
rude realism of the actors was in some 
small cases repulsive. This scene, like 
those which immediately followed it, was 
acted with great dignity. Maier, in his 



personation of the Saviour from this 
point in the mystery forward to the cru- 
cifixion, allows himself to appear 
literally like clay in the hands of the 
potter; he is the patient sufferer for the 
sins of others ; his eloquence is mute, 
and his humility is imposing. For the 
sake of convenience I will pass over the 
Old Testament tableaux, which, in this 
second division of the Passion, are 
shown before each episode in the life of 
the Saviour, and will review them later. 
After the scene before Annas, the cen- 
tral curtain rises, and we are shown a 
room in the house of C'aiaphas. On a 
dais the high-priest, dressed in splendid 
robes, stands, surrounded by his subor- 
dinates, and the bound Saviour is pushed 
in before him. From another entrance 
arrive Samuel and the live witnesses. 
The impressive presentation of the 
episode in which the Saviour declares 
himself, — " Thou hast said : nevertheless 
1 say unto you, hereafter shall ye see 
the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
of power, and coming in the clouds of 
heaven," was exceedingly striking. 
Caiaphas indulged in a fine fit of rage at 
what he considered this blasphemy ; 
there was a great clamor, and the assem- 
bly broke out with cries of "Death! 
Death!" after the Saviour had been 
ordered to appear before the Sanhedrim 
on the morrow. The curtain fill and the 
gloomy picture of Judas in his gown of 
startling color, appeared once more. 
Judas was stung to his conscience's 
quick, and his soliloquy was given with 
a real pathos. Shortly afterward came 
a scene which has provoked no little 
criticism in the orthodox world, because 
of its intense realism. It represents 
Christ sitting, bound and blindfolded, 
on a stool in an anteroom of the Sanhe- 
drim. The brutal soldiers are tor- 
mentiusr him. I confess that it seemed 



808 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



to in;- needlessly prolonged and painful. 
Th' soldiers beat their captive, sang 
rude songs in his cars, tipped him over, 
and said, ••Nov if thou art a King, get 
upon thy tin-one again," and thrust a 
crown of thorns upon his tortured 
brows. I could hear the deep breathing 
of tli 3 peasants ia the seat; below me 
while this was in progress. The ladies 
seated near mo turned away their faces 
and would not look. 

.lust before this occurs the scene in 
which l'eter li 'trays his Master, accord- 
ing to V,)',: prophecy. It is quaintly con- 
ceived and executed. We are shown a 
large hall, with a bevy of querulous maids 
lighting a fire, each one of them abusing 
the Saviour heartily. Peter and John 
come i:i and try t > warm themselves with- 
out exciting observation. While l'eter is 
rubbing his hands before the flames one 
of the women points him out and de- 
nounces him. lie protests, and imme- 
diately the cheerful notes of chanticleer 
are heard behind the scenes. As this is 
repeated for the third time, there is the 
clash of arms, the soldiers who have been 
lounging off duty spring to their feet, and 
the Saviour enters, guarded by a dozen 
men. " He is sentenced to death." says 
Selpha, very simply ; and Peter, shrinking 
away from the mild and sorrowful gaze 
of the man-God, bursts into tears, covers 
his face with his hands and departs. 
This is stirring ami dramatic, anil is so 
well pi lyed by the actors that for a 
moment it assumes all the proportions of 
reality. At the close of this part of the 
play we arc shown Peter pouring out his 
soul in a violent torrent of self-reproach. 

Words are sadly incompetent for the 
description of the act in which Judas, 
in rage and despair at his own folly, takes 
bis life. A certain class of spectators 
profess here and there to discern laugh- 
able places in the Passion-Play, but no one 



ever laughs at the agony of Judas. It 
seems red and fully justifies the encomi- 
ums lavished upon it by celebrities in the 
histrionic world. When the curtain i iscs 
again we are in the Sanhedrim. The 
richly-robed priests are in their places, 
exulting in the savage decision which 
they have lately made, when Judas, hag- 
gard and ferocious, rushes in, and in 
passionate reproach curses the assembly 
for the sad work to which it has tempted 
him. The high-priests sneeriugly bid 
him cease his clamor. lie seizes the 
money-bag at his girdle, hurls it down 
at the foot of the blood-stained tribunal, 
and rushes out of the hall, leaving the 
priests quaking upon their seats with fear 
and indignation. There is a brief interval 
in the tragedy of Judas, in which we are 
shown a delegation of priests before the 
house of Pilate. A Roman servant steps 
out and eyes them scornfully. They tell 
him that they cannot enter his master's 
house, because it is the residence of an 
unclean heathen, but that they can speak 
with him if he will appear in his balcony. 
This elicits from the servant the well 
known reproof about straining at a gnat 
and swallowing a camel, and the delega- 
tion passes on. 

The curtain rises on the suicide of 
Judas. We are shown a wild, weird spot, 
in the centre of which is a small mound 
with a tree growing upon it. I notice 
that Mr. Jackson, in his line work on the 
Passion-Play, alludes to a Satan which in 
the mysteries of the Middle Ages used to 
beckon to Judas from the branches of 
this tree. Happily all such mummery as 
this was long ago abandoned, and all 
poor Judas sees is the image of his de- 
spair beckoning him on to death. The 
acting which precedes the final despairing 
suicide is remarkably good. Judas does 
not rant nor mouth, but lie delivers the 
beautiful and affecting lines which Pastor 



EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 



809 



Daisenbcrger lias put into bis mouth, with 
great dignity and pathos, and now and 
then a certain grim sorrow, which cuts to 
the heart. Judas then rushes to the tree, 
and is about to hang himself as the 
curtain falls. As I have remarked i:i the 
previous chapter hs is the Judas of the 
Catholic world, — a Judas who is but an 
unfortunate instrument in the hands of a 
supernatural power, — a Judas for whom 
we feel decided pity aslhe victim of fate. 
The characters of Pilate ami Herod in 
the Passion-flay are assumed with much 
skill. Pilate appears upon his balcony, 
accompanied by his guard, and listens to 
the noisy accusations of the high-priests 
and Jews who bring Christ before him. 
He treats them all with mild contempt, 
as members of a conquered race, but 
shows an earnest desire to do justice. 
In this scene the smallest details are 
lovingly elaborated until the patience of 
the audience is perhaps a trifle tired. 
A messenger enters and tells Pilate of 
his wife's dream. The just Roman 
governor is struck by the vision which 
his wife has had, and he cries out, " Is 
this man from Galilee?" — " Yes,*' cries 
the rabble, "he is simply a Galilean; 
he is from Nazareth, in the territory of 
King Herod." — "Then take him to bis 
own king ; Herod hath come to Jerusa- 
lem to celebrate the feast ; let this man 
be taken before him ; " and Pilate retires 
from the balcony, leaving the angry 
priests and the mob to follow the bound 
and helpless Saviour to Herod's palace. 
The scene before the monarch is very 
impressive. It is a room in the central 
stage, with Herod on a golden throne, 
dressed in velvet garnished with silver 
and white. When Christ is brought 
before him, Herod rallies him, taunts 
him, says, •■ If you are a prophet, or a 
god, do a miracle." When he sees that 
nothing can be made of this treatment, 



he ridicules the Saviour still more, and 
orders the garment of ridicule to lie 
placed upon him, and a. sceptre in bis 
hand. It is impossible to describe the 
rude realism with which tins scene is 
given. Herod dispatches the business 
speedily when he discovers that there is 
no amusement to be bad, and sends the 
company back to Pilate. Once more the 
procession arrives under the Roman 
governor's balcony, and clamors for 
blood; then, in obedience to Pilate's 
command, follows the scourging-scene, 
which is such an exhibition as would not, 
I suspect, be allowed in America. All 
the rough force of the medi;cval drama 
— the bold, courageous mediaeval drama, 
which told the truth and shamed the 
devil — is here. Christ is scourged until 
it seems as if the human frame can bear 
no more, and his body falls against the 
tormentors. 

The succeeding scenes are painful in 
the highest degree. If the Old Testa- 
ment tableaux were cut out, and the 
performance were thus shortened, the 
interest in these last dramatic pictures 
woul 1 doubtless be intensified. The fact 
is that the spectators become so tired as 
hardly to be able to appreciate the 
beauty and sublimity of the mystery. 
There is one grand musical effect, when 
the chorus, on the proscenium, is telling 
the story, and as a sombre refrain we hear 
in the distance the cries of the populace 
for the release of P>ar:ibbas ami the 
murder of the Saviour. A striking 
picture is formed when Pilate places 
Christ and Barabbas side by side ou his 
balcony, and asks them which they will 
have. Barabbas, and the two thieves 
who are brought ou in prison garb, with 
ropes on their bauds and feet, are terri- 
fying figures. 

When Pilate has washed his hands 
and the judgment of death by crucifixion 



810 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



between the two thieves has been pro- 
nounced upon Christ, the spectators 
betray, by uneasy movements in their 

seats, and by many expressions, some- 
thing very like a disinclination to wit- 
ness the coming spectacle. A certain 
reverence s seras to bid them look with 
fear as well as sorrow upon the awful 
tragedy of the crucifixion. Peasant 
women sometimes faint when they see 
the procession of (he soldiers conducting 
the Saviour to the place of execution. 
I am bound to say that these final pict- 
ures did not impress me so much as the 
earlier ones did. But there has randy 
been on any stage a more perfect piece 
of "setting" than that given by the 
Ober-Ammergauers in the "bearing of 
the Cross lo Golgotha." The soldiers, 
the executioners, the centurion, the 
sordid figures of the two thieves drag- 
ging their crosses, and Ilerr Maier's 
slight form weighed down by the heavy 
burden until he falls, as the Saviour fell ; 
the howling mob, the group of sorrow- 
ing women, and Mary flu.' mother of 
Christ frantic in her grief, the priests, ■ — ■ 
all surrounded by a group of three or 
four hundred people, — make a most 
striking picture. I think this painful ami 
touching portion of the play covers half 
an hour. Nothing is omitted, from the 
conduct of the good centurion to the 
final resolve of Mary to follow to the 
very foot of the cross. When the pro- 
cession passes on around the corner 
and the last robe is lost to sight, there 
is an immense sigh of relief. This 
revivification of sacred history is won- 
derfully exciting and saddening. 

The chorus appears in mourning gar- 
ments, just before the scene of the cruci- 
fixion is disclosed by the raising of the 
curtain of the central stage. The music 
at this point is particularly effective. I 
think it is the only occasion in which it 



may really lie called adequate. The 
sound of hammers i-i heard, and, as the 
chorus retires, we are shown the hill of 
Golgotha. The two thieves, tied to their 
crosses, form a most lugubrious spectacle. 
But all attention is concentrated on the 
figure of the Saviour on the central 
cross. It is impossible to detect from 
any place among the spectators the 
manner in which Ilerr Maier is sus- 
pended. He seems actually nailed to 
the fatal tree, and the sight is so sad 
that one involuntarily turns his eves 
away. Of course the expedients adopted 
are very simple, and I do not feel called 
upon to describe them. In front of the 
place of execution the men who have just 
finished the crucifixion are playing at 
dice for the garments of the victims; on 
the right stand the priests, reviling him 
whom they believe to lie a false prophet; 
and at the back of the cross stands Mary 
with her friends, Mary Magdalen, 
Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodenms 
and John. The whole story as given in 
the gospel is enacted. Nothing could 
be finer than the noble attitude of Ilerr 
Maier in the last moments on the cross 
when he turns his eyes upon his mother 
and his beloved disciple, and says, 
"Woman, behold thy son!" — '•Son, 
behold thy mother!" or when, at the 
last great instant he cries Ea ist 
voUtracht! — -It is finished! — and his 
head falls to one side. 

The storm and the rending of the veil 
of the Temple in twain are but clumsily 
rendered, but the imagination of the 
spectators has been already so worked 
upon that everything seems to them re- 
markable. The executioners proceed in 
tin' coolest and most brutal manner to 
kill the thieves by breaking their limbs 
and ribs with clubs, after which the cen- 
turion pierces the side of the Saviour 
with a spear, and a jet of blood springs 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



811 



out. Then the thieves are taken down, 
after which executioners, soldiers, and 
the alarmed and superstitious priest- 
hood retire, and the followers of the 
Saviour are left alone with the crucified 
body- The descent from the cross is 
copied from the noted painting by 
Rubens, and forms a beautiful group. 
The descent, the mourning, the anoint- 
ment, the placing of the body in the 
sepulchre, are performed with a tender- 
ness, solemnity, and grace, beyond all 
praise. AVhile this was in progress I 
really felt that I was witnessing a 
religious ceremony. 

The resurrection and the ascension are 
but inadequately represented. It would 
be far better for the Ober-Ammergauers 
to rest their efforts with the close of 
the crucifixion scene, but one is always 
compelled to bear in mind that they are 
aiming at the recital of the whole story 
— in the fullest if not always the most 
dramatic manner. The final chorus : — 

"BringtLob und Preis dem Hachsten dar, 
Dem Lamme das getodtet war, 
Halleluja! Halkduja! " 

produces an exquisite effect. As the 
last members of the chorus disappear 
from the stage at the close of the " As- 
cension," the Passion-Play closes. 

The tableaux from the Old Testament 
in the second portion of this curious 
mystery are in many respects finer than 
those in the first section, but they do not 
appeal to the sympathies of the specta- 



tors. For instance, just before the res- 
urrection, we are shown " Jonas cast on 
dry land by the whale," — a veritable 
New England primer conception of this 
curious event; and this is followed by 
"the Israelites crossing the Red Sea in 
safety." The bearing of the cross to 
Golgotha is prefigured by " Young [saac 
carrying the altar-wood up Alt. Moriah ; " 
and the healing and atoning virtues of the 
cross are symbolized by the magical effects 
which Moses produced when he raise 1 the 
brazen serpent on a cross i:i tli • wilder- 
ness. In this tableau three hundred 
persons take part. Avery noble history 
picture, which I ought to have mentioned 
in its proper place, is " Joseph made 
Ruler over Egypt." In this there are 
evidences that the Ober-Amrnergauers 
must have spent their money without 
stint in costumes, and the thousand and 
one properties necessary for such a re- 
production, a festival in the times of the 
Pharaohs. 

There were various rumors at the time 
that the celebrated mystery will never be 
performed again. Those who are famil- 
iar with the history of the vow mad • by 
the Ober-Ammergauers to perform it 
indefinitely every ten years will not 
believe them likely to change their minds. 
It is a beautiful, touching, holy, and 
noble dramatic sketch of the most won- 
derful life and death on record, and he 
who can go away from it without re- 
ceiviug some beneficial lessons must 
have a very hard heart indeed. 



812 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETY-TWO. 

Vienna, where the East meets Hie West. — The Emperor of Austria. — His Simple Life. — The Slavs and 
Hungarians. — Berlin ami Bismarck. — The ajrcil German Emperor. — Startling Progress of German 
Industry. — The Thrones of (he North. — Nihilism and Socialism. — Colonial Schemes. — Possible 
Absorption of the Small Countries ofEuropc. 



ONO before the now and astonish- 
-L-* ing development of the struggling 
nations in south-eastern Europe, — 
development which has been but briefly 
described in these pages, — Vienna was 
beginning ti> feel a new commercial im- 
pulse, and to profit by the wealth poured 
into her coffers by speculators, mer- 
chants from the East and West, and by 
the hundreds of luxury-loving aristocrats 
from all the lands bordering on the 
Orient. Old Vienna, picturesque and 
rather dirty, was gradually environed by 
a magnificent " ring " of stately palaces, 
not specially remarkable for refined taste, 
but of noble proportions, and. taken col- 
lectively, more imposing than anything 
else in ( rermany. 

Vienna is now a town containing more 
than one million and one hundred thou- 
sand inhabitants within its fortifications, 
and it would seem as it' at least one-fifth 
of these inhabitants were struggling in 
the money-market for sudden riches. The 
story of the Krach, as it was so appro- 
priately called, — the great financial crash 
which came, a few years ago, to warn the 
incautious Viennese that all was not 
gold tint glittered, and reduced, in the 
twinkling of tin eye, thousands of people, 
who had fancied themselves millionaires, 
to absolut • beggary, — is appalling. I 
was once shown, while visiting the 
mansion of a well-known Vienna gentle- 
man, a heap of slocks which originally 
represented 400, 000 Austrian gulden. 



" And," said the gentleman, with a 
smile. •'! will transfer the whole lot to 
you if you will pay into my hands lifty 
gulden." 

While the financial craze lasted in 
southern Germany there was the usual 
growth of buildings, and even the usu- 
ally sedate and cautious government 
caught the infection, and began a series 
of lofty piles, parliament houses and 
municipal structures, which had to re- 
main unfinished with scaffoldings about 
them for many a long year after the 
corner-stones were laid. 

The famous King, or circular boulevard 
extending around the whole of old Vienna 
is one of the gayest, most, picturesque, 
and most charming promenades in Eu- 
rope. In fact Vienna is distinctly gay. 
There the primness and ceremonial stiff- 
ness of western Europe begin to fade 
into the harmonious irregularity of the 
Orient. As in Berlin everything seems 
to be constructed with a view to bring- 
ing out the angles, so. in Vienna, all the 
corners are rounded off. Colors are 
bright, and often dazzling; music is 
voluptuous ; wines and sweets, fruits 
and ices, are displayed in tempting 
profusion. Out-of-door life abounds, 
and the people are merry and free in 
their manners. They have an abun- 
dant humor. The town is tilled with 
fine horses, finely dressed men, beauti- 
ful women, with soldiers in every con- 
ceivable tint of uniform. The East and 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



813 



the West here touch hands, hut there 
is a leaning towards the Orient. Aus- 
tria does not bear her name in vain. 
She is the "Empire of the East ; " or, 
rather, she: is determined so to be, de- 
spite Russian intrigue and the thousand 
obstacles which have weighed upon her 
progress to l he sea and towards Con- 
stantinople. The composite character 
of the population of the empire-king- 
dom is felt and seen everywhere. The 
German language, which is the official 
one in Austria, and which rules supremo 
at the court theatres and at the opera, 
is not so often heard in the street as 
the jolly' but highly erratic Viennese 
dialect, against which the northern 
German may butt his bead without 
comprehending it. The soul hem Slav 
contributes hiu plaintive and imagina- 
tive temperament to the composition of 
the Vienna populace. 

The north Germans say that Vienna is 
not a German city ; and they say this as 
if it were a reproach. Although the 
Catholic church is the state religion, 
and is powerful, and prominent in all 
public places, maintaining the splendid 
out-of-door processions and ceremonials 
which have been banished from most of 
the northern capitals, there are Greek 
and Armenian Catholics, Protestants, 
Byzantine Greeks and Jews, in plenty 
to maintain their cemeteries, monasteries, 
nunneries, and churches in Vienna. 

In the superb cathedral of St. Stephen, 
which springs with airy grace from its 
ancient site in the very centre of the old 
city, the Catholic ritual is seen in splen- 
dor such as is scarcely to be found else- 
where outside of Spain. Close by one 
may peep into a Jewish synagogue. The 
old feeling of intolerance, the old pas- 
sion for illiberalism which once charac- 
terized Austrian governments, appears 
to have melted away. Austria, under 



the influence of her disasters and the 
changes rendered necessary by them, 
has become liberal and progressive ; is 
anxious for education, for elevation of 
the masses, instead of that military 
glory which was so completely over- 
shadowed on the field of Sadowa, and 
which is such a vanity and vexation of 
spirit even alter it is obtained. 

The Emperor of Austiia is one of 
those wise men who has learned by ex- 
perience; who knows that politics is the 
science of expedients, and who has 
moulded himself to the times Once a 
violent opponent of Hungarian expan- 
sion, ho has come to be King of Hungary 
as well as Emperor of Austiia; has 
flourished his sword to the four corners of 
the earth, and sworn to defend Hungary 
and its people from invasion coming from 
any quarter, and has submitted for years 
with exemplary patience to the predomi- 
nance in the empire-kingdom's ministerial 
councils of Hungarian statesmen, who, on 
the whole, have done fairly well for both 
countries. lie has the tenacity ami the 
unfaltering patience of the Hapsburgs; 
and he has, too, their noble fortune, 
which he uses with taste and with gener- 
osity. One of the richest men in Europe, 
he fosters literature, music, and art. 
His private library is that of a man of 
letters. lie is a careful and conscien- 
tious administrator, — up in the morning 
at five o'clock, winter and summer, ready 
after prayers for his simple breakfast of 
bread and coffee, and then at work at 
his desk at eleven, with no companion 
save his secretary and one of the long 
cigars, called Virginias, of which the 
Viennese are so fond. Towards noon he 
has pot-luck and a glass of beta-, like 
the simplest of his subjects ; then works 
on (unless some ceremony or state 
affair calls him from the palace) in his 
private office until dinner-time, when he 



814 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



meets his family and spends an hour or 
two with them. 

His private office is between his 
dressing-room and the Council hall, in 
which the ministers meet. Over his 
plain office-table hang the portraits of 
his children, and two line pictures of the 
Empress painted by Winterhalter. lie 
is a good listener, is never imperative, 




EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA 

hates phrases ami long speeches, is 
unaffected and simple in his address, 
and now and then goes down among 
the people, conversing freely with 
them. The Catholic church claims his 
humblest devotion. Once every year he 
is seen on foot and bareheaded, behind 
the archbishop, walking through the 
streets; and once each year, also, the 
Emperor and Empress attend in a room 
in the palace upon a delegation of the 
poor, whose feet they wash in token of 
humility. The Emperor, although unfor- 
tunate as a soldier, is fond of the army, 



and never appears to such advantage as 
in uniform. He is an intrepid hunter ; 
fond of the dangerous sports in the 
Austrian Alps, where chasing the cha- 
mois is by no means a pastime for in- 
experienced sportsmen. In the Hunga- 
rian mountains, as at Schcenbrunn or at 
Ischl, he may often be seen clad in a 
simple frock, and, with a huge stick in 
his hand, walking through the fields of 

s e farm and chatting with the farmers. 

When he visits Budapest the old Hun- 
garian city brings out its many splendors 
to lay them at his feel ; and lie has the 
singular advantage of being a popular 
monarch in two countries, radically dif- 
ferent from each other. 

In public, at the opera, at state balls 
or diplomatic receptions, he has the 
languid grace and elaborate manners 
of the aristocracy of which he is the 
head. Austria is one of the few Eu- 
ropean countries which can still show a 
veritable aristocracy, whose privileges 
have not been cut down, and who have 
not learned to yield a little in pres- 
ence of the invading democracy. The 
manners of the middle and lower classes 
show that there is little tendency as yet 
to assail the aristocrat in his position. 

Vienna has a season like London, 
when everything is doubled or tripled in 
price; when every desirable apartment 
in the great hotels and mansions, the 
numerous palaces and villas, is taken up 
by country gentlemen, with interminable 
suites of servants. Then the handsome 
capital is wild with excitement; the 
streets are thronged with rapidly rolling 
carriages ; the operas and theatres are 
packed ; the parks are brilliant with 
equestrians; museums and the fashion- 
able restaurants are filled, and servants 
are content only with gratuities which 
would seem extravagant and princely 
elsewhere. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



815 



The Vienna grand opera is incom- 
parably the best in Europe. In point 
of scenic completeness it is superior to 
that of Paris, while the monument in 
which the opera is shrined is not so 
imposing as the Parisian one. All 
through the pleasant weather the Vien- 
nese adopt every slightest pretext for 
assembling in the beautiful halls with 
which the city is amply supplied, to 
listen to the bewitching music of the 
Strauss brethren, who are the spoiled 
children of Austria, and wlio sum up 
in their mad waltzes the Viennese 
spirit, its deep passion of the South and 
mysterious languor of the Orient, its 
dash of gypsy vagabondage, — all blended 
together in proportions which, according 
to the verdict of the whole civilized 
world, are positively enchanting. 

The Viennese are the most hospita- 
ble of peoples, and a more splendid 
succession of flte.s than that given dur- 
ing the sessions of the International 
Literary Congress, in IMS I, has rarely 
been seen. These festivals were held 
both in public halls and in private man- 
sions. The Mayor and municipality 
entertained in the famous Blumen Saal, 
and hundreds of ladies and gentlemen 
there attended a kind of informal feast, 
in which the lusty wines from the vine- 
yards about Vienna played a prominent 
part. 

In midsummer there are few more 
charming sights than Vienna, on its 
plain opposite the Blue Danube, with 
the abrupt height of the Kahlenberg 
near by. All around are vineyards and 
gardens ; pretty valleys leading up to 
rugged mountains ; rich expanses of 
waving green ; ancient villages, mon- 
asteries, and churches. It is but a short 
distance to Presburg, once the pretty 
capital of Hungary, now a sleepy old 
city, literally embowered in vines. 



From Vienna and Budapest one or 
two daily express trains run with deco- 
rous gravity. There is not much social 
intercourse between the two capitals. 
Pest is a superb new quarter, as new as 
Chicago, and built up, like Chicago, out 
of profits made on grain. The Danube 
here is large and majestic, and the con- 
trast of rocky old ( Men on the right bank 
with new and dazzling Pest on the left 
bank of the stream is most striking. 
From Vienna to Pest the beautiful Aus- 
trian river is literally the blue Danube, — 
the Danube of the Strauss waltzes and 
the popular ballads, — a lovelier stream 
than the Rhine, and flowing past almost 
as many noble ruins as its northern 
sister can boast. With this great high- 
way to the Orient what wonder is it 
that Austria has irresistible tendencies 
towards Constantinople anil the East! 

The Hungarians, who now number 
nearly fifteen millions, are such stern 
enemies of the Russians that they are 
glad to see Austria assuming prominence 
as a great Slavic empire, although they 
fear that they may themselves one day 
be surrounded and swamped when the 
great unification of the Slavs takes 
place. 

Between these capitals of the southern 
empire-kingdom and that of the German 
empire, the city of the Hohenzollerns, 
in its sandy plain on either side of the 
Spree, there is the widest contrast of all 
sorts, and especially in the men who hold 
the helm of state in either. Nowa- 
days in Europe when any one thinks 
of Berlin he also thinks of Bismarck. 
The great Chancellor has dwarfed every- 
thing else in Germany ; his colossal statue 
overtops the Emperor, the talented and 
cultivated Crown Prince, all the shining 
lights of the military party, and of course 
all the literary and artistic celebrities. 
In fact, so far as the rest of Europe is 



816 



EUROPE IX STOEM AND CALM. 



i oncerned, Germany U a kind of luminous 
mist, out of which arises the towering 
figure of the great unifier anil wire- 
puller. 

Prince Bismarck never fails to place 
himself in the second rank when he is 
spoken of in connection with German 
polities, Imt he by no means believes 









i m 




EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 

that he occupies such rank. He is 
proud of being called the '■ King's man ; " 
but it would lie more jus! to call him 
the man who supports the King, or the 
Emperor. 

The aged German sovereign is a fine 
figure-head, the beau ideal of a veteran 
soldier and of a finished gentleman, — 
one of the hist of the monarchs who 
feel that they rule by incontrovertible 
right, and that it' any concession be 
made to popular sovereignty it is out of 
generosity, rendered e:isy by the security 
of their own positions. The Emperor 
has his importance in these later years, 



because it is felt that he is a kind of 
" stop-gap ; " that he stands in the 
breach to prevent hostile collision be- 
tween (he great northern powers which 
have assumed such prominence in the 
last three decades ; in other words, that, 
so long as he lives, Russia will not fight 
Germany. 

When the Emperor William disap- 
pears possibly the attitude of Russia to 
Germany may change. The thrones of 
the two countries will lie occupied by 
men of undisputed will-power, wide- 
reaching ambition, and considerable hos- 
tility to each other's aims. For the last 
ten years it has been sufficient, whenever 
there was a disturbance of Russian opin- 
ion against Germany, for the two Em- 
perors to give fresh proofs of their mutual 
good-will in order to allay all excite- 
ment. 

Alexander has gone now, beckoned 
away by the bony hand of that spectre, 
which, as M. Thiers so truly said, " has 
left France and gone promenading in the 
North " But Alexander's son, anti- 
German as he is in feeling, will not he 
likely to move his hand against Germany 
while the venerable Emperor William 
lives. 

Berlin and Bismarck, Bismarck and 
Berlin; — these words have been heard 
almost constantly in Europe .since 1.S7*. 
With the Berlin Congress came the 
definite recognition of the fact that 
Europe must go to Berlin for leave and 
license to carry out its plans, and from 
the Congress which revised the Treaty 
of San Stefano to the conference which 
carved out the Congo State, in this 
present year, German predominance and 
prestige have grown and strengthened 
until they are becoming to certain high- 
spirited nations somewhat irksome and 
exasperating. The efforts of Great 
Britain to ignore the leading rule of 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



817 



Germany are well known. Thus far 
they have been without practical result; 
net even so distinguished a Liberal as 
Mr. Gladstone finding it easy to tilt 
against the Bismarckian windmill with- 
out breaking a few lances and getting 
severely bruised. 

The German position in Europe is in 
many respects most singular ; a nation 
which has carved out its unity at the 
point of (lie sword finds itself at the 
height of power, possessing without 
question the finest military organization 
in the world, equally equipped for offense 
and defense, yet earnestly striving to 
maintain peace, and by all reasonable 
means to keep its own armies out of 
action. While surrounding nations, and 
in fact most of the nations of the world, 
have been looking upon Germany for 
the last eighteen years in constant ex- 
pectation of her downfall, because of the 
drain upon her resources caused by the 
maintenance of her arm}', Germany has 
managed to develop her industry and 
commerce in a remarkable degree, and 
to-day competes with France and Eng- 
land in those great foreign markets 
which the Briton and the Gaul once 
proudly claimed as exclusively their 
own. A careful observer is forced to 
the conclusion that Germany maintains 
its army for the purpose of overawing 
Europe, and getting its own way in 
everything by a display of the force 
which can compel assent if persuasion 
fails. 

The French find to their cost that the 
industrial triumph of Germany is greater 
than her military triumph. The Ger- 
mans, who so long passed for being slow 
and unambitious, have proved the 
quickest and keenest traders in Europe. 
With workmen carefully and symmetri- 
cally educated; with a country filled 
with the best of schools, general and 



technical ; with the sinews of men 
trained by the best and most intelligent, 
physical exercises in and on; of the 
army, — Germany has a body of workmen 
surpassed in no country, and equalled in 
few. These workmen can and do live 
on small wages ; they are scattered about 
in diminutive communities, where housing 
and food are cheap and easily obtainable, 
and they pull together in the industrial 
war against the rest of the world, as 
they did in the military struggle for 
supremacy for which they had been 
preparing through fifty years of silent 
study. 

The indisputable triumphs of northern 
and middle Germany in industry and in 
the political world could not have been 
achieved without the masterly leadership 
of Prince Bismarck ; and the nation, 
appreciating this, associates his name 
with every national move. His powers 
are of course limited ; but he is unwilling 
to confess this, and he tries to invent 
remedies for everything, even for the 
crying curse of Socialism, which is eat- 
ing out the heart of many great German 
communities, and preparing for a revolu- 
tion, which may be put off, but cannot 
be permanently averted. He bends the 
currents of trade towards Germany, or 
distributes them through it. His baud 
is seen in the boring of the St. Gothard 
Tunnel, and the opening of new com- 
mercial currents towards Genoa and the 
Southern Seas, just as it is seen in the 
creation of syndicates in Hamburg for 
monopolizing the African trade in the 
very teeth of England and France, both 
of which countries feel that they must 
have Africa at all hazards. 

The sudden arrival of Germany upon 
the field of colonial enterprise, two or 
three years ago, created an almost ludi- 
crous consternation in European circles. 
France, which had been told by the 



818 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



dying l.ittre that it must colonize if it 
wished for military prestige anywhere, 
as she could no longer hope for it in 
Europe, lias expanded her dominion in 
North Africa, and even knocked at the 
doors of the celestial empire. England, 
in her jealousy of France has narrowly 
escaped coming to blows with her neigh- 




EMPEROl 



iF RUSSIA. 



bor and friend, and the English press 
has been full of allusions to the old days 
when France and England were con- 
stantly jostling each other in the field 
of colonial conquest. Italy and Spain, 
fretting within their narrow bounds, and 
anxious for glory beyond seas, have 
cast, covetous eyes upon the African 
lands near them, Russia has pushed 
her standards dangerously near the gates 
of India, hurrying on across the deserts 
in Central Asia to the gardens just 
beyond them. Austria has used up her 
sui'iilus activity in Arctic expeditions, tor 
lack of something better. Meantime 
Germany, which lias been quietly and 



silently building a vast fleet, having got 
it into shape for service, steps forth 
upon the colonial field, and announces 
her decision to take a portion of Africa. 
It would be difficult to imagine a more 
high-handed proceeding than that of the 
German government in its acquisition of 
African territory; yet other European 
countries can do nothing to prevent it, 
and are compelled to >it around the 
diplomatic table in Berlin to make sun' 
that they can keep their own colonies. 

The northern powers. Russia and Ger- 
many, present the Spectacle of great 

nations, not spontaneously acting in 
obedience to some inherited, policy of 
expansion or unification, but driven or 
moulded into certain courses by the will 
of strong men. I suppose these nations 
may say that their collective will has 
been summed up in certain individuals. 
In both countries there is protest, con- 
stant and strong, against the one-man 
power and the injustice and hardship 
which it necessarily inflicts on numerous 
classes. Socialism in Germany is but a 
mask for the advanced, untaught, and 
dangerous republicanism which Europe 
must have, before it can have an en- 
lightened and self-controlling democracy. 
Nihilism in Russia, with its men grovel- 
ling in the earth to lay mines of pow- 
der, or slinking through corridors with 
daggers in their hands, or holding meet- 
ings in remote and gloomy forests, is 
another and a ruder phase of the repub- 
lican movement. The most terrible form 
of nihilism, manifested in the doctrineof 
the destruetionists. who wish to do away 
with society without substituting any- 
thing in its place, who seem to have de- 
voted their existence to the work of mere 
tearing down, is the result of the terrible 
repression in Russia. Emperor William 
of Germany escaped the assassin's hand, 
although he was struck at with the same 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



819 



unrelenting persistence ami malevolence 
that finally laid the Emperor Alexander 
of Russia in his grave. Bismarck, all 
powerful as he seems, realizes that he 
treads on a volcano, and cannot affirm 
that an eruption may not overwhelm 
him just as he seems about to " crown 
the edifice " at the end of his illustrious 
career. 

Should Bismarck live to lie a very old 
man many strange things, now only 
whispered about in Europe, might 
become actualities. Those persons who 
talk with bated breath of the absorption 
of Holland and Switzerland into the 
German Empire as an impossibility 
might find that it was quite within the 
scope of Bismarck's genius. Having 
demonstrated his power to draw the 
centre of control to Berlin, ami to main- 
tain it there, why might he not boldly 
change the map of Europe a little more? 
Heaven knows it has been changed fre- 
quently enough in the last half genera- 
tion ! Besides, he is a master of the 
policy of •' give and take." As in the 
Congo ( '(inference lie brought the French, 
his most implacable enemies, to cooperate 
with him simply because they knew they 
would profit materially by so doing; so 
if he chose to attack the autonomy of 
the brave little countries which have a 
Germanic tinge, he might find plenty of 
bribes with which to stop the mouths of 
the objectors. 

The industrial progress of Germany is 
so powerful that it may break down all 
barriers which would keep it from a 
wide outlet upon the Northern sea, and 
which might claim complete control of 
the great highways that, burrowing 
under the Alps, lead out to the seas 
which wash the shores of the Italian 
peninsula. 

Europe has become so accustomed to 
regard Prince Bismarck as magnificently 



permanent that it would be shocked to 
its centre if he were to lie carried off in 
one of his many illnesses. In recent 
years he has shown symptoms of great 
anil general fatigue, manifest principally 
in a petulance quite astonishing in one 
of his robust intellect, against any who 
dare to cross even his least important 
plans. In his long tight with the Ultra- 
montanes he was no more imperious than 
he is on the simple matter of some 
measure of home taxation. He is a 
driver who keeps his horses well in hand, 
ready to flourish the whip whenever there 
is any manifestation of independence on 
the part of the steeds. A Frenchman 
has called him " the Mikado of Ger- 
many." This rather indefinite definition 
admirably hits the general French opinion 
of the great man. It is certain that 
Bismarck has maintained kis dignity 
better than Thiers, better than Guizot, 
better than Beaconsfield, in carrying 
through the gigantic schemes in which 
he has been engaged. He has, however, 
had a more docile people to handle than 
the French or the English, who rebel 
more readily against the display of 
authority than the Germans, with their 
memories of the great Frederick, can for 
a long time hope to do. 

At Friederichsruhe or at Varzin, in 
his cabinet or in the parliament in Berlin, 
he is the unyielding master, who brings 
the dart of Jove into play the moment 
that he finds persuasion not strong 
enough. An American is reluctantly 
forced to the conclusion that Europe is, 
on the whole, fond of being bullied, and 
will fall at the feet of him who can bully 
with the roundest voice and the bisgesl 
fist. In very recent days Prince Bis- 
marck has, by his personal influence on 
general European affairs, forced the 
German nation more prominently into 
view than ever before. Not satisfied 



820 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



with carving a German colonial empire 
in Africa, out of the territories which he 
took bodily from under the grip of France 
and England, he now assumes to be the 
arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and will not 
give England peace until she consents to 
bring Egypt, as everything else has been 
brought, on to the green cloth at Berlin. 
It is from the North alone that per- 



mission for the definite reopening of the 
" Eastern Question " can be obtained ; 
and the country which, twenty years 
ago, would scarcely have been considered 
in the arrangement of matters in the 
East, is now the one which must be lirst 
consulted by those who were wont to 
look upon her as a second or third class 
power. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



821 



CHAPTER NINETY-THREE. 



The Storm of Europe diverted into Africa. — How Great Britain was drawn into Egyptian Affairs.— 
The Revolt of Arabi. — Rise of El Mahdi. — Gordon to the Rescue. — The Long Siege of Khar- 
toum.— Fall of the Soudanese Stronghold and Reported Death of Gordon. — The Recall of 
Wolseley. 



THE storm of Europe is not all con- 
fined within its narrow boundaries, 
but readies over the world, and dis- 
charges its lightnings, sweeps with its 
terrible winds, and devastates with its 
floods and fires. Even now two Euro- 
pean powers, that are also Asiatic powers, 
are confronting each other in Afghanis- 
tan ; anil who dare say that war in 
Europe may not result from this dispute 
of Russia and Great Britain? — the latter 
barring now, as so often before, the way 
of the Muscovite empire to the sea. 
shutting up the path to the Persian Gulf, 
as it has forbidden the Straits of the 
Bosphorus and the prize of Constanti- 
nople In Africa, as we shall see later, 
the powers of Europe meet peacefully 
now, — thanks to Stanley and King Leo- 
pold, and, above all, to Bismarck, — upon 
the Congo ; but occasion of strife there 
is yet remote. Elsewhere in Africa also 
the powers meet and conflict, at the 
mouth of the Nile and at ancient Cairo, 
where the all-potent interests of trade 
and money have compelled the govern- 
ments of France, England, Germany, 
and Italy, to concern themselves in the 
government of Egypt, and consequently 
in the religion of Islam. The business 
interests of all are identical, but no other 
power has as much at stake in Egypt as 
Great Britain, for not only is it of 
moment to her that the government 
should be stable, solvent, and willing to 
pay the interest on its immense debts, 



but through Egyptian territory passes 
the Suez Canal, the gateway to the great 
Indian empire, built by the French Do 
Lesseps, but now chiefly owned by Great 
Britain. It is neutral in case of war for 
the world's commerce, but the fortunes 
of war do not always respect the most 
guarded of agreements. The necessity 
of keeping at the head of affairs in 
Egypt a government that could be man- 
aged so as to secure the moneyed inter- 
ests of Europe was what provoked the 
one war which Mr. Gladstone's late gov- 
ernment originated, for it inherited the 
other wars it has taken part in from 
Lord Beaconsfield's "Jingo" policy. So 
when, in September, 1881, Arabi Bey, a 
colonel in the Egyptian army, and others 
of his rank', headed an insurrection to 
demand a new ministry; and when, dis- 
satisfied with the new ministry when it 
was given, and still more dissatisfied 
when foreign intervention came, the 
colonels drew the army into active rebel- 
lion ; there was nothing for Great Britain 
to do but put down the patriots, as they 
called themselves. Thus started the 
trouble of the English in Egypt. Arabi 
was an Egyptian, and, the first of Egyp- 
tian blood who had held so high a rank 
among the Turks, made much out of his 
profession of patriot. He was an ignorant 
man, — he could not read Arabic even; 
but he knew his country had been abused 
long enough by its Turkish rulers, who 
had plundered it by the Sultan's imposts 



S-.'L' 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



and for their own extravagances, and 
had brought it into debt on every hand, 
grinding the luckless fellaheen to the 
earth under hopeless oppression. The 
man was incompetent to his rdle of 
savior, and his success would have been 
ruinous to his country, but there was 
never any chance of his succeeding. At 
first there was talk of the Sultan, the 

Khedive's suzerain, taking possessi f 

the land in force; hut England would 
not have allowed that: it would have 
made matters worse instead of better. 
There was also talk of joint occupation 
by England and France, hut finally the 
policing of Egypt, the protecting of its 
helpless nominal ruler, the Khedive, and 
the putting down of the rebellion of the 
colonels, was committed to England 
alone; ami how she accomplished those 
tasks we need not recall in detail. 

As before said. Arabi was ignorant; 
the present Khedive recently related an 
amusing instance of the depth of his 
ignorance. "1 shall never forget," he 
said, "one incident that occurred while 
he was secretary of war. It was at the 
time of the excitement about the Italians 
taking Asab on the Red Sea. It was at 
a meeting of the council where I pre- 
sided. Arabi said, ' Italy must not be 
allowed to do this. We will prevent it 
by destroying the Suez Canal so that 
they cannot get to the Red Sea.' I said, 
' What do you mean? You will destroy 
the Suez Canal ? Why, the Suez Canal is 
an international highway, and you would 
not lie permitted to do it. Besides, if 
you did, you would not prevent the 
Italians sending their ships around by 
the Cape of Good Hope and entering the 
Red Sea from the south.' — ' What,' said 
Arabi, ' is there another way of getting 
to the Red Sea than by way of the canal?' 
The fact was that he had not the slightest 
idea of the shape or raison d'etre of the 



Red Sea, though it is a body so inti- 
mately connected with Egypt that it may 
almost be said to be Egyptian." Not 
only was he ignorant, but we fear he 
must be confessed a coward ; his sole 
virtue was his blind feeling that every- 
thing was wrong, the fellaheen abused, 
and the foreign officers, who really 
owned the country, much too arrogant; 
but this, and the small education he had 
in military affairs, did not suffice for the 
occasion. Alexandria was bombarded 
duly 11, 1882 ; Sir Garnet Wolseley, who 
had won a reputation in the Ashantee 
war, arrived to take command of the 
British troops in the Khedive's service, 
August 15, and Arabi and his army of 
sixtv thousand Egyptians were utterly 
routed at Tel-el-Kebir on September 13, 
only three days over a year since the 
day when he, at the head of four thou- 
sand men, had confronted the Khedive 
with a demand for the resignation of the 
ministry and the formation of a new 
one, the assembly of the Notables, and 
a constitution. Wolseley was made a 
baron for Tel-el-Kebir, and Arabi went 
to prison, was afterward tried for treason, 
and exiled to Ceylon, where he now 
lives, at the cost of the Egyptian govern- 
ment, in a comfortable house :it ( 'olomho. 
lie is trying to learn English, and is 
supposed to be ambitious of literary 
fame in a history of his times, while 
without question he is getting up a, col- 
lection of autographs of his visitors, who 
all sign their names in his big book. 

While the English were finishing this 
job, another much more troublesome one 
was preparing for them in Upper Egypt. 
In July, 1881, five months after the 
military riot in which Arabi lirst came 
into notoriety, and when discontent was 
growing every day, came the news of 
the appearance of a prophet in the Sou- 
dan, who asserted that he was tin' Mahdi, 



EVROrE IN STORM AND CALM 



823 



the great savior and reorganizer of 
Islam. This was an event ominous of 
due disaster or not, according as he 
should prove able to impose himself upon 
the people, for there have been many 
false prophets presenting that claim, who 
have had sometimes great success for a 
time, but sometimes also none at all. 
The idea of the Mahdi is the same with 
the idea of the Messiah ; it is the Persian 
version in fact of the Judaic original. 
When everything is getting as bad as 
possible iu Islam, and .Satan, or the 
Beast of the Apocalypse, or Antichrist, 
or the false prophet, whom the doctrine 
of Islam calls Deddjal (the Impostor) — ■ 
appears, — then the true prophet is to 
come. This personage must be of the 
family of Mahomet ; at the head of the 
true believers he will master, one by one, 
the Moslem kingdoms, and his title will 
be El Mahdi, or He who is led. At the 
coining of Deddjal, too, Jesus is to 
descend from heaven, but not to play 
the foremost part, as in Christian proph- 
ecy, but as assistant to the Mahdi, 
who will be his Imam, after whom he 
will repeat his prayers. Many Mahdis 
have had their day, and their failure has 
proved them false prophets ; this one. now 
he lias failed, will be fatalistically regarded 
as another, and the Moslems will proceed 
to look for the true Mahdi, who should 
come after the false. He had a good 
many of the marks ; he bore the same 
name as the Prophet, Mohammed Ahmed ; 
his father bore the same name as the 
Prophet's father, Abdallah ; his mother, 
like the Prophet's mother, was Annua ; 
he was forty years old when he appeared, 
and that is the sacred age, — Mahomet's 
own age at his revelation ; and, more- 
over, he had been carefully brought up 
as a candidate for the position. Yet 
against these advantages it must be 
said that the ulemas declared him an 



impostor, and the cherif of Mecca, the 
head of the sacred tribe of the Koreish, 
pronounced him the false prophet. 
However that may be, Mohammed 
Ahmed has been constantly growing in 
power to this day, when he occupies 
nearly all the Soudan, and he has cost 
the English much money, a great many 
soldiers, and several generals, chief 




EL MAHDI. 

among them the strange hero known as 
'•Chinese Gordon." 

The first attempt to bring the Mahdi 
to terms was disastrous to the small de- ■ 
tachment charged with the duty ; an- 
other fared no better, and in June, 1882,. 
he, with his Soudanese, swept out of ex- 
istence the Egyptian army of the Soudan, 
numbering six thousand men, under Yus-- 
suf Pasha, slaying all but a few soldiers. 
From that victory he began offensive 
war. overran the wide country without 
check, and brought to his side nearly 
every tribe of the region. He was de- 



824 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



feated at Bara, and again in his fierce 
assaults on El Gbeid, capital of Kordo- 
fan, where he was thrice repulsed and 
lost, it is said, ten thousand men. But 
afterward, early in 1883, he took Bara, 
and then El Obeid surrendered, and 
nearly all its garrison took service with 
him, and lie made the town his dwelling- 
place. It, was not until after this tri- 
umphant career, and the establishment 
of a mighty prestige with tin' lawless 
tiibesof tin' region, that the Egyptian gov- 
ernment began to consider the necessity 
of suppressing his formidable rebellion. 
It must not be forgotten that this region 
of the Soudan, populated by intelligent, 
vigorous and free races, had been for 
many years subjected to the grossest 
tyranny and exaction, under the reign of 
the Khedive Ismail and his predecessor. 
Before this it was that, Charles George 

Gordon hail had his wonderful career as 
Governor-General of the Soudan, in 
which he had greatly lightened the bur- 
den of the cruel rule of Egypt, and the 
atrocities of the slave-trade. His was 
the first administration in which hu- 
manity and respect for the rights of the 
Soudanese had been shown, and its ex- 
perience had intensified the discontent 
of the people, and they were rile for 
revolt when the Mahdi gave them the 
opportunity and impulse. It was a scat- 
ered popular movement that the Egyp- 
tian government now undertook to put 
down. The Khedive, after the fall of 
El Obeid, organized such an army as he 
could to oppose the dangerous rising, 
and sent it thither under the command 
of an Englishman, Hicks Pasha. Abd- 
cl Kader, an Arab, with a small force, 
had already entered Sennaar and gained 
some success, when Hicks arrived at 
Khartoum, in March. At first, it seemed 
that Hicks would save the fortunes of 
the Khedive's rule. He defeated a large 



force in Sennaar, April 29, and the 
Mahdi's vizier was among the slain, 
while the Mahdi himself was shortly 
after beaten, and tied to Kordofan. 
Thereafter for months Hicks had a 
career of uninterrupted success, and 
things looked hopeful when, in early 
autumn, he set out at the head of ten 
thousand men to quell the Mahdi by one 
blow. He was betrayed into an am- 
bush, and his force utterly destroyed ; 
no European at all survived, and the 
Egyptian campaign against the Mahdi 
was at an end — the resources of the 
Khedive were exhausted. 

The English had waited too long. 
Had they supported the Khedive from 
the start, as they had morally bound 
themselves to do by their suppression of 
Arabi's rebellion, the Mahdi's career 
might have been cut short. Hut, the 
government had declined to help Egypt 
in subjugating the Soudan. Lord Gran- 
ville had stated in Parliament in the 
spring of 1883 that "Her Majesty's 
government, were in no way responsible 
for the operations which had been under- 
taken on the authority of tin- Egyptian 
government, or for the appointment and 
action of General Hicks." But when 
Hicks and his army had been massacred, 
a certain sense of responsibility began 
to creep over the managers of British 
foreign affairs. Something must, lie 
done. At, once the attempt was made 
to get Egypt to abandon the Soudan, 
for conquer it, she could not, nor would 
England help her. But that was con- 
ceded — for, really, what choice had Tew- 
fik, a powerless "protected" prince, 
the mere administrator of British will? 
Then arose the question of the garri- 
sons, thirty thousand soldiers, mostly 
Egyptians, in Khartoum, and Berber, 
Dongola, Kassala, and other places, 
who would assuredly he butchered by 



EUROl'K IN STORM AND CALM. 



825 



the fanatic followers of the Mahdi if 
they were left there. It was at this 
juncture that the British thought of 
Charles George Gordon. This wonder- 
ful soldier of fortune, whom some call 
the greatest Englishman of his age, did 
not desire the work, for he knew what it 
was, none so well ; and, moreover, he 
had already iial ('-engaged with the King 
of the Belgians to go to the upper Congo 
and supplement Stanley's work, by ex- 
tirpating the slave-trade of Central Af- 
rica. For that he had quitted his re- 
treat in the Holy Land, where he had 
been meditating and producing that 
book of mystical religious thought since 
published ; yet. when he asked the per- 
mission of the British government to 
take that service, and yet retain his 
commission as major-general, there was 
some difficulty made about it. But as- 
sent was gained when, on the eve of de- 
parture lor that service. Gordon was 
sought for the Soudan. The govern- 
ment was not the first to ask for Gor- 
don ; that was left for the newspapers, 
and they were not backward in doing 
their duty. Said the " Pall Mall Ga- 
zette:" ''If we have not an Egyptian 
army to employ, and if we must not send 
an English force, what are we to do? 
There is only one thing that we can do. 
We cannot send a regiment to Khar- 
toum, but we can send a man who, on 
more than one occasion, has proved him- 
self more valuable in similar circum- 
stances than an entire army. Why not 
send Chinese Gordon to Khartoum, to 
assume absolute control over the terri- 
tory, to treat with the Mahdi, to relieve 
the garrisons, and do what can be done, 
to save what can be saved, from the 
wreck in the Soudan? His engagement 
on the Congo could surely be postponed. 
No man can deny the urgent need in the 
midst of that hideous welter of confusion 



for the presence of such a man, with a 
born genius for command, an unex- 
ampled capacity in organizing • Ever Vic- 
torious' armies, ami a perfect knowledge 
of the Soudan and its people. Why not 
send him out with carte blanche? " 

The British government knew all this 
well ; they knew Gordon's genius and 
gifts and the great things lie had done in 




GEX. C, G. GORDON. 

China, and what former service as Gov- 
ernor-General of the Soudan, the most 
popular one that ever ruled, and the only 
one that had ever done any good there 
excel it Sir Samuel Baker. But Gordon 
was a man of greater resources and more 
striking character than the excellent 
Baker. He had shown one of his eccen- 
tricities by refusing a salary of £10,000 
a year, when the Khedive appointed him 
governor of the tribes in upper Egypt in 
1877, and would take but £2,000, saying 
that the money was wrung from the pov- 
erty of a wretched people whom he pitied. 
He was made a pasha, and, in February, 



826 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 

1877, he was made Governor-General of tian government. The British govern- 
the Soudan. In the course of that year ment had the choice of simply aiding 
he travelled through the whole of this this policy, which it had advised the Khe- 
great proconsulate, settling difficulties, dive to adopt, or of supporting the Khe- 
pacifying hostile tribes, removing -officers dive by British troops, numerous enough 
who oppressed the people, gaining the to pursue an active and destructive cam- 
love of the people by his brilliant Insight paign against the formidable false pro- 
ami unswerving justice, and winning an phet. Gordon made a memorandum of 
almost superstitious admiration by the his own plans, which, as read now, imli- 
rapidity of his movements and the cate the impossibility of working in Lon- 
celerity of his despatch of affairs. The don and at Khartoum on two very different 
great work of his administration was not lines. The evacuation of the Soudan, 

the putting down of rebellion in Darfur, the mere resc f the Egyptian garri- 

or the ending of the war with Abyssinia, suns, could have Keen accomplished had 

hut the crippling of the power of the then- been no other considerations, lint 

slave-dealers at the very source of their Gordon also planned to make a disposi- 

supplies. He captured hundreds of slave tion for the future of the country. Not- 

caravans, and put an end to a dominion withstanding that he hail said at the start 

which hail fur years been stronger in " I understand that Her Majesty's gov- 

actual influences than the power of the ernmeut have come to the irrevocable 

Khedive. In doing this Gordon hast- decision nut to incur the very onerous 

ened tin- way of his own death (if. in- duty of securing to the peoples of the 

deed, lie lie dead), for when his able Soudan a just future government," in 

lieutenant, the Italian Romulus Gessi, the same paragraph In- went on to 

executed the penalty of death upon Sulei- say that. •■ as a consequence, Her 

man, the robber chief, sou of Zebehr, the Majesty's government have determined 

kill",' of the slave-traders, the act. al- to restore to these peoples their inde- 

though Zebehr acknowledged its rightful- pendence ; " ami. further on, he says: 
ness. was not forgotten or forgiven by "My idea is that the restoration of the 
that important personage, who was able country should he made to the different 
to direct from his detainment, under sur- petty sultans who existed at the time of 
veillanee at Cairo, the operations of trai- Mehemet Ali's conquest, and whose 
tors who opened the gates of Khartoum families still exist ; that the Mahdi should 
to the Mahdi. But this is to anticipate, lie left altogether out of the calculation 
Having these things iii mind the Brit- as regards the handing over the country; 
ish government did appoint Gordon, and, and that it should he optional with tin- 
ever ready to obey the summons to a sultans to accept his supremacy or not. 
field of immediate and pressing action. As these sultans would pi - obably not he 
he responded promptly, informing King likely to gain by accepting the Mahdi as 

Leopold that he should hope to he able their sovereign, it is probable that they 

to carry out his engagement with him con- will hold to their independent positions. 

cerning the Cong., after he had accom- Thus, we should have two factions to 

plished his work on the Soudan. lie deal with, namely, the petty sultans as- 

went with the clear understanding that sertiug their several independence, and 

the end to he accomplished was the the Mahdi party aiming at supremacy 

evacuation of the Soudan by the Egyp- over them." The arsenals, therefore. 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



827 



should be handed over to the sultans, and 
not the Mahdi ; but in Khartoum, Don- 
gola, and Kassala, towns which have 
sprung up since the first Khedive's con- 
quest, there were no old ruling families, 
and there Gordon thought it should be 
left to the people to decide as to the arse- 
nals, etc. All this involved precisely 
what Gordon had plainly said he knew 
the British government would not do, and 
what, in fact, it did not do. Neverthe- 
less, it was with these ideas that he left 
for the Soudan. " It would In- an iniq- 
uity to reconquer these people and then 
hand them back to the Egyptians without 
guarantee of future good government." 
And, therefore, he did notdesire that the 
British should take the part of the Egyp- 
tian government, but he did outline a pro- 
gramme of sustaining the local sultans as 
against the Kordofan prophet which in- 
volved a great deal larger force and more 
fighting than the government at London 
ever contemplated. Thus, although the 
government never promised to fulfil 
Gordon's plans, itdid express the inmost 
confidence in his wisdom, and tell him to 
go ahead, with •• full discretionary power 
to retain the troops for such reasonable 
period as you may think necessary in 
order that the abandonment of the coun- 
try may lie accomplished with the least 
possible risk to life and property." And 
Gordon sailed with this unrecognized but 
most serious difference between himself 
aud the government. 

The late Governor-General of the Sou- 
dan reached Khartoum February 18, 1884. 
His first acts were to liberate prisoners 
and prepare for the removal of the gar- 
rison to Berber. Iu nine days more he 
had surveyed the field and come to ttie 
conclusion that it was necessary, in order 
to accomplish his plans, to crush the 
Mahdi, and he began telegraphing to 
Sir Evelyn Baring that it could then be 



done without great costin men or money, 
lie required also for his lieutenant whom 
but his old enemy Zebehr, the slave- 
trader! Shortly after he astonished the 
world by proclaiming in Khartoum non- 
interference with the slave-trade. The 
inconsistency of this action with Gor- 
don's professions and previous record 
seemed impossible to explain ; but the 
British government expressed their con- 
fidence in his judgment in the emergency. 
Seven-eighths of the population of the 
Soudan were slaves at that time, and 
Gordon had to reassure the Soudanese 
againsl the impression disseminated by 
the Mahdi that Gordon's purpose was 
to extinguish their property in slaves. 
Whether he intended or not, at the stall, 
to subjugate the Mahdi, he found when 
he got on the spot that if he did not, 
nothing could save Egypt from his ad- 
vance after the Sondau was conquered, 
as it. soon would be. and he thought the 
British government might better do the 
job then, when it would !»• comparatively 
easy, than suffer the influence of the 
Mahdi to spread until lie possessed an 
irresistible force. But the British gov- 
ernment sent no more troops and paid 
no heed to Gordon's demand for Zebehr. 
Gordon <rrew desperate, if we may judge 
by his despatches at the time, ami espec- 
ially by his diaries since published. 
Things had been going constantly against 
him. Colonel Valentine Baker, in the ser- 
viceof the Sultanas Baker I'asha, hadsuf- 
fered a severe defeat at Tokar, February 
4 ; Tewfik Bey had, a week later, tried to 
cut his way with his garrison out of 
Sinkat, but all the six hundred men were 
slain by the forces of Osman Digna, who 
was now recognized as the Mahdi's viz- 
ier. Tokar had surrendered. A mas- 
sacre of Egyptians, endeavoring to escape 
from the country, had occured at Sheinly. 
There had been a temporary gleam of 



828 



EUROPE IX STORM AXI> CALM. 



success in General Graljiyn's defeat of 
a force near Trinkitat ; but that was 
more than offset by the massacre of a 
part of the Egyptian army under com- 
mand of Colonel Stewart, for it revealed 
the existence of treachery ; two pashas 
having been detected in their negotia- 
tions and shot. Meantime, Gordon's 
communications with the world were 
often cut off, and repeatedly lie tele- 
graphed for reinforcements, declaring 
his conviction that he should be caught 
in Khartoum. April 8 he got through 
the following message to Sir Evelyn 
Baring : — 

" I have telegraphed to Sir Samuel 
Baker to make an appeal to British and 
American millionaires to give me £300,- 
(lilll to engage Turkish troops from the 
Sultan and send them here. This will 
settle the Soudan and Mahdi forever; 
for my part I think you will agree with 
me. I do not see the fun of being 
caught here to walk about the streets for 
years as a dervish with sandalled feet ; 
not that ( I). V.) I will ever be taken 
alive. It would be tiie climax of mean- 
ness, after I had borrowed money from 
the people here, had called on them to 
sell their grain at a low price, etc., to go 
and abandon them without using every 
effort to relieve them. Whether these 
efforts are diplomatically correct or not, 
1 feel sure, whatever you may feel 
diplomatically. I have your support — 
and every man professing himself a 
gentleman — in private. Nothing could 
be more meagre than your telegram, 
' Osman Digna's followers have been 
dispersed.' Surely something more than 
this was required by inc." 

Eight days later he wrote as follows: 
" As far as I can understand the situa- 
tion is this: You state your intention of 
not sending any relief up here or to 
Berber, and you refuse me Zebehr. I 



consider jnysalf free to act. according to 
circumstances. I shall hold on here as 
long as I can, and if I can suppress the 
rebellion 1 shall do so. If I cannot, I 
shall retire to the Equator, and leave you 
the indelible disgrace of abandoning the 
garrisons of Sennaar, Kassala, Berber, 
and Dongola, with the certainty that you 
will eventually be forced to smash up 
the Mahdi under greater difficulties, if 
you retain peace in Egypt." 

For months thereafter nothing was 
heard of Gordon any more than if he 
had been in the moon. A diary of the 
siege of Khartoum, written by a. news- 
paper correspondent named Power, 
reached London September 2'.), contain- 
ing the first information from the belea- 
guered place for live months. What 
righting Gordon did in the interim was 
from iiis steamers on the Nile. The long 
siege was sustained, not by the bravery 
of the garrison, for, as Mr. Power wrote, 
the Egyptian soldiers were such pol- 
troons that •• one Arab can put two hun- 
dred of our men to flight," nor by the 
abundance of provisions, for they grew 
very scarce, but by the invincible spirit 
of Gordon. This, however, did not 
make him more popular with the people 
of Khartoum, who. doubtless, did not 
understand the conduct of such a man. 
It was a month later before word was 
had directly from Gordon, giving details 
of the siege. At that time he had sent 
important sorties, and even expeditions, 
from Khartoum, in one of which Berber, 
captured in May by the Mahdi, had been 
retaken by Colonel Stewart. But, on 
the way back, Stewart and Power and 
another European, making their way 
down the river in a small .steamer, were 
wrecked, and the whole party murdered 
by a local sheikh, in whose professions 
of friendship they had trusted. It 
became more and more evident that the 



EUROPE IN STORM AMP CALM. 



829 



Soudanese were impatient at the occupa- 
tion of their country, and more inclined 
to accept the lead of theMahdi. It was 
recognized in England that this was the 
character of the movement that con- 
tinued to be called a " rebellion." Mr. 
Gladstone, in Parliament, replying to 
" .Jingo" attack's, spoke of the Mahdi as 
one leading a people to freedom ; and 
it was true. All the while, therefore, 
the Mahdi's strength continued to in- 
crease, and he was constantly gaining 
small victories, and closing in on Khar- 
toum. The diaries of Gordon have 
enabled us to follow the whole course of 
this time, when he felt that he was 
abandoned by the British government, 
and when there was a loud cry went up 
in Eugland almost to cursing the gov- 
ernment ; but yet the authorities de- 
clared Gordon in no danger. Lord 
Granville asserted that in the House of 
Lords, and said that if he felt himself 
abandoned, it was because the govern- 
ment despatches had not reached him. 
In May a meeting of the Patriotic Asso- 
ciation was held in St. James Hull, 
London. The Earl of Cadogan presided. 
Mr. Chaplin, M.P. , moved, and the Earl 
of Dunraven seconded a resolution 
"that this meeting condemns the aban- 
donment of General Gordon by Her 
Majesty's ministers as dishonorable to 
them and discreditable to the country." 
It was then declared that ho bad asked 
for moue} - , and it had not been sent ; 
had asked for Zebehr, and had been 
refused ; had prayed for troops, and 
been told there were none. It was often 
said that Gordon could get out if he 
would, and there is no doubt that he 
might have done so alone, but that he 
called, in his unmincing manner, " sneak- 
ing out," and he could not sneak. 

At the beginning of August, it is 
known from the diaries, Gordon's troops 



had fired about half a million cartridges ; 
two of his little steamers had received 
on their hulls nine hundred and eight 
hundred hits, respectively; yet only 
thirty men had been killed or wounded. 
But the strain upon I he besieged was 
terrible. Great economy of food was 
necessary ; every one was rationed, and 
food had become thirty times dearer 
than its usual price. He bad borrowed 
money to feed the starving, and he had 
issued paper to the extent of over 
£21',, 000, while he owed the merchants 
twice as much more. lie struck medals, 
for the defence of Khartoum ; for of- 
ficers, in silver, for privates, in silver- 
gilt and pewter. These bore the device 
of the crescent and the star, with a 
quotation from the Koran, a, date and 
the inscription "Siege of Khartoum." 
"School children and women." he writes 
in his diary, " also received medals, 
so that I am very popular with the 
black ladies of Khartoum." The stores 
of ammunition grew low, and had to be 
husbanded very carefully. Gordon was 
everything; without him there was no 
strength whatever. The military, the 
ulemas, sojourners, and citizens of 
Khartoum, on August 19, telegraphed 
to the Khedive as follows : " Weakened 
and reduced to extremities, God in his 
mercy sent Gordon Pasha to us in the 
amidst of our calamities, or we should 
all have perished of hunger and been 
destroyed. But sustained by his intelli- 
gence and great military skill, we have 
been preserved until now." That shows 
what Gordon was to his Mohammedan 
friends ; yet at this time he was writ- 
ing, " We appeared even as liars to the 
people of Khartoum," because nothing 
that he asked for was granted him. 
Finally, August 20, he sent to the 
Khedive, to Sir Evelyn Baring, and to 
Nubar Pasha, this significant despatch : 



830 



EUROrE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



" I am awaiting the arrival of Brit- 
ish troops, in order to evacuate 
tlic Egyptian garrisons. Send me 
Zebehr Pasha, and pay 
him a yearly salary of 
£8,000. I shall surren- 
der the Soudan to the 
Sultan as soon as two 
hundred thousand Turk- 
ish troops have arrived. 
If the rebels kill the 
Egyptians, you will be 
answerable for their 
blond. Irequire£300,000 
for soldiers' pay, my daily 
expenses being £1,500." 




mON OF TKOOPS FOR EGYPT. 

while it had been at last deter- 
i England to attempt the relief 
on. On the 5th of August, a 

£300,000 was voted to prepare 
an expedition, and Lord Wolse- 
Egypt, was directly after un- 
til command it. It was resolved 

a railway up the Nile valley. 



EUROPE IN STURM AXD CALM. 



831 



Four hundred boats of light draught were 
■ordered, and ship-yards at Liverpool, 
London, Hull, Hartlepool, and Dundee 
were busy with the noise of labor day 
and night ; presently four hundred more 
were ordered. On the 30th of August 
the Nile was reported rising, and it was 
time things were on the move. Lord 
Northbrook was to accompany Wolseley 
so far as Cairo. There were prepara- 
tions swiftly made in London for the 
departure of the troops, and there was 
great excitement as some favorite regi- 
ment embarked upon the Thames. Some 
troops were ordered from India, and the 
whole force to go south of Assouan, that 
is, above (he cataracts, was determined 
to comprise eight thousand British 
troops, two thousand five hundred Egyp- 
tians, and a flotilla of nine hundred and 
fifty boats ; the cost of the campaign was 
reckoned at £8,000,000. There were 
already ten thousand British troops in 
Egypt, and the reinforcements were to 
number five thousand. There grew a 
great popular interest in the war move- 
ment, for Jingoism is a permanent quality 
in England ; the colonies felt the demand, 
and troops went from Australia and 
from Canada. The Marquis of Lans- 
downe, Governor-General of the Domin- 
ion, enlisted a contingent of six hundred 
boatmen of the St. Lawrence and Ot- 
tawa, who had long navigated the rapids 
of those might}' rivers of the North, 
to conduct the troop-boats up the 
rapids of the Nile, under command of 
Major Dennison of the Governor-Gen- 
eral's body-guard. The popular songs 
in London streets were of Egypt and 
Gordon; and this interesting composi- 
tion bade the Caughnawagas God-speed 
on (heir service : — 



•' Oh, the East is but tiie West, with the sun a 
little hotter, 



Ami the pine becomes a palm by the dark 
Egyptian water ; 

And the Nile's like many a stream we know- 
that fills the brimming cup. 

We'll think it is the Ottawa, as we track the 
batteaux up. 

Pull, pull, pull ! as we traek the batteaux up! 

It's easy shooting homeward when we're at the 
top." 

This is quite in the measure and spirit 
of the Canadian cliantis, as they call 




LORD WOLSELEY. 

them, and very likely was sung on the 
Nile among the boatmen's own simple 
lays, — a picturesque incident of a waste- 
ful and ineffectual war. 

Lords Northbrook and "Wolseley 
reached Alexandria September 9, the 
same night reached Cairo, and there 
Wolseley waited until the troops and 
transports had passed the second cata- 
ract, the former by land, the latter 
pushed by the poles of hundreds of 
half-fed laborers. Above Dongola the 
advance was to be by water. The 
enlistment of a camel corps, for the 



832 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



crossing of the desert, — :i novel experi- 
ment, which proved of great- practical 
service, — was ordered. The railway 
corps were set to building :i road 
across twenty miles of desert beyond 
Sarras. to escape (he Scinneh cataracts. 
When everything was ready Wolseley 
was to advance to Wady Haifa and 
direct operations thence. Meantime 
there were many combats going on over 
other parts of the Soudan which were 
draining the English purse and losing 
English lives to do permanent purpose 
and little present effect. The Mahdi's 
force was greatly scattered, and much 
of it uncertain. The Mudir of Dongola 
remained loyal to the Khedive, and was 
a bulwark against, the Mahdi's advance. 
Now Gordon had made striking moves 
outside of Khartoum, and reports went 
over the world of the most singular 
character, so that there was actually 
triumphant talk, September 21st, over a 
despatch from the Mudir recounting 
victories gained by Gordon in July and 
August, the latest a mouth back, which 
the Mudir said resulted in raising the 
siege of Khartoum. Hut though the 
lines were broken several times by the 
magnificent dashes of Gordon and Stew- 
art, and the food supplies of the be- 
leaguered place replenished, the siege 
was destined never to be raised. It 
was on October.'!, Wolseley being then 
at Wady Haifa, and the expedition mak- 
ing slow progress up the Nile, that Gen- 
eral Gordon advanced with two steamers 
from Khartoum, bombarded Berber, and 
retook it from the Mahdi's forces, on the 
return from which expedition Colonel 
Stewart and Mr. Power were killed. 
This success had determined the false 
prophet upon an absolute investment, 
and he gathered forces from far and 
near, and soon hail over 15,000 men 
around Khartoum. On the 4th of 



November he called upon Gordon to 
surrender ; but that stanch heart did 
not fail him, and he returned answer, 
" Notforten years," and afterward sent. 
word, ".When you, () Mahdi ! dry up 
(he Nile and walk across dry-shod with 
your troops and get into Khartoum and 
take me, then I will surrender the town, 
and not before." But, as a matter of 
fact, he did not intend to surrender the 
town, or himself ; nor did he intend to 
accept from the expedition a personal 
relief for himself, or the relief of that 
garrison alone. About this time, in his 
diary, he repeatedly expressed his deter- 
mination never to leave Khartoum so 
long as there remained a garrison in the 
Soudan unrelieved, or without a govern- 
ment being established of some sort. 
" If any emissary or letter comes up 
here ordering me to come down, I will 
not obey it," he wrote, " but will stay 
here and fall with the town, and run all 
risks;" for he felt that the people had 
placed in him their entire confidence, 
and it would be treachery in him to 
abandon them, even should he only stay- 
as nothing but a private person, without 
authority. Little was heard from him 
outside for mouths ; but a few words 
occasionally got through on bits of paper 
stuffed in the hollow of quills and car- 
ried in the messenger's bush}' hair, and 
by other such means. These were 
sometimes full of despair, as in a note 
received in November by a friend at 
Cairo, saying, " Farewell ; you will 
never hear from me again. I fear that 
there will lie treachery in the garrison, 
and all will lie over by Christmas." 
Sometimes they were cheerful, as the 
line " Khartoum all right, 14th Decem- 
ber." which reached head-quarters at 
Koiti, on New Year's Day. 

The column under General Herbert 
Stewart made a rapid inarch across the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



833 



desert, and the camels were extremely 
satisfactory. The advance had reached 
Gakdul Wells and Howeiyat Wells, 
near Metemneh, January 10, and Gen- 
eral Gordon's steamers were plying on 
the river between Khartoum and Me- 
temneh, not only to keep 
the water-way open, bul 
WUtUj to communicate, as soon 
as possible, with the re- 
lief Force and to gather 
supplies, which 
i. .,,. . „ ,■ they succeeded 

in doing. Ihe 
s e c o n d 
part of 



men approached Abu Klea Wells, they 
were attacked by from 8,000 to 10,000 
of the Mahdi's followers, at a point 
twenty-three miles north-west of Me- 
teinneh, and lost sixty-five in slain 
and eighty-five in wounded, after 
killing eight hundred of the rebels and 
wounding as many more. General 
Stewart formed his troops into a hol- 
low square, with his field-pieces at the 
corners and with the invalids and the 
provisions in the centre. The Arabs 
made their attack in a tumultuous rush, 
directed principally upon the side of the 
square held by the hussars. It was a 
fierce hand-to-hand fight most of the 
time. A steady and deadly fire was 
kept up by the lnissais ami the mounted 
infantry, while the artillery maintained 







DEPARTURE OF TROOPS FOR EGYPT. 



the forces travelled much more slowly 
across the desert than the first, for 
every ounce of food and water had 
to be carried, and there was terrible 
suffering from thirst. General Earle's 
party were making their way up the 
Nile, and the forces were expected 
soon to unite. On the afternoon of 
the 16th, as the little army of 1,500 



an enfilading fire, which piled dead 
Arabs up in heaps. The space in 
front of the British right flank was a 
veritable slaughter-pen. But among 
the English dead were some important 
men, most noteworthy being Lieutenant- 
Colonel Fred Burnaby, who made the 
famous •• Ride to Khiva," and who was 
killed by an Arab spear thrust through 



834 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



his neck. The victory had been gained 
at great cost. 

Twelve days later another battle was 
fought at Metemneh, and with disas- 
ter. General Stewart was desperately 
wounded, and two London newspaper 
correspondents were killed, — St. Leger 
Herbert, of "The Morning Post," and 
Mr. Cameron, of "The Standard." The 
little force, amid the storm of bullets, and 
under command of Sir Charles Wilson, 
began a retreat to the Nile, firing in a 
running light a.ll along the line as the}' 
went. Not till night did the enemy 
withdraw. But, having placed them- 
selves in a strongly-fortified position 
at Gubat on the Nile, the English 
troops rested secure. The next day 
four of Gordon's steamers came down 
from Khartoum, with a reinforcement 
of five hundred soldiers and several 
guns. General Earle's column in a few 
clays arrived at Berti, and occupied it. 
There was now every hope of a speedy 
entrance into Khartoum. This was Gen- 
eral Wolseley's expectation, and the 
people of London were full of rejoic- 
ing. 

Suddenly, without the least prepara- 
tion, a cruel blow fell which crushed 
all the British hopes. On the 5th of 
February the news reached England that 
Khartoum had fallen into the hands of 
the Mahdi ; that massacre had followed ; 
and that the fate of the brave Gordon 
was unknown. 

Sir Charles Wilson had steamed up the 
Nile, January 2 I, with twenty men of the 
Sussex Regiment and three hundred and 
twenty Soudanese, who had but just 

before comedown from < rordon. As they 
neared Khartoum they found, to their 
alarm and surprise, that every point on 
the way was in the hands of enemies, 
and when they had approached within 
eight hundred yards of the walls, instead 



of Gordon to welcome them, they were 
confronted by thousands of Arabs, wildly 
waving flags, and a dozen pieces of 
artillery, backed by a thousand rifles, 
opened fire upon them. Against this 
odds it was, of course, impossible to 
land, and Wilson retreated down the 
river. His steamers were both wrecked 
on the way, by treacherous pilots, but 
the men all escaped, and remained three 
days on an island before they were 
rescued. The whole story of the fall of 
Khartoum has never been told by any 
reliable person, though there have been 
a score of minute accounts, each one 
contradicting every other. The most 
that, is credibly ascertained is that Khar- 
toum was betrayed by three Soudanese 
sheiks, whom Gordon had treated only 
too well. Faragh Pasha, whom Gordon 
had once had condemned to death and 
then pardoned, is said to have been the 
man who opened the gates of the city, 
and some add even that he was the one 
who struck ( tordon dead. Many pictures 
have been drawn of Gordon's death, the 
most probable being that, hearing an 
unusual noise on the street, he stepped 
to the door of the government house, and 
was stabbed on the threshold. There was 
a romance which many wished to believe, 
that the brave soldier had been made 
captive by the Mahdi, who would treat, 
him well ; and, indeed, there are those 
who do believe that Gordon yet lives. 
The story of (he Soudan is not yet 
finished, though Wolseley has returned 
to England with no new honors, and the 
garrisons of the Egyptians at Kassala 
and other places have not been relieved. 
Suakim. on the Red Sea, is in the British 
hands; the Italians hold Massowah, 
against the protests of the King of 
Abyssinia, but Osman Digna possesses 
all the country between there and the 
Nile, except where sundry fierce tribes 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



8^5 



dwell that will not recognize the Mahdi ; 
and the region is in its normal state of 
predatory war. The .Soudanese want to 
be free from the Egyptians, free from 
the British, and left to their own way of 
life, without the innovation of the tax- 
gatherer, that leech that drains the life 
of the poor fellaheeu. Whether the}' 
had much religious confidence in the 
Mahdi may be questioned, but he was 
a leader for liberty, and that has 
been enough. Of late Mohammed 



Ahmed lias been reported dead and 
revived again alternately so often that it 
is somewhat a mystery. But it is no 
mystery that the British in the Soudan 
have sustained great loss of prestige, 
and have accomplished nothing toward 
the strengthening of their dominion in 
the East, where they are destined to be 
forever menaced by the ambition of 
rulers, the rivalry of trade, the restive- 
ness of subject nations, and the treachery 
of allies and tributaries. 



836 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR. 

The Death of Victor Hugo. — The Greatest European Man of Letters since Goethe. — Napoleon III. 'a 
Irreconcilable Foe. — Jlis Obsequies. — The Pantheon Secularized. — In State Beneath the Arch 
of Triumph. — A Vast Procession. — The Demonstration of the French People. 



ONE of the memorable events of the 
present Year in Europe, unques- 
tionably, was the death of Victor Hugo. 
Long acknowledged as the greatest of 
all the poets of France, living- or dead, 
and famous iii his prime as the leader 
of the Romantic revolution in French 
literature and the august head of that 
school, he had become the principal man 
in European letters since Goethe; more 
than that, he had borne a great part in 
the advance of Europe toward freedom, 
in all fields of life, in social and political, 
in national and international movements. 
Born an aristocrat, he became the most 
radical and broad-minded of republicans, 
and was true to the people in their storm 
as in their calm. He had no toleration 
I'oi tyrants; nothing could make him 
compromise his principles by condoning 
the crime of the Second of 1 (ecember, and 
when many another republican of 1848 
had accepted office, and almost all im- 
munity from Napoleon III., Victor lingo, 
faithful to his professions, would not 
reenter France, hut hurled his tierce in- 
vective against " This beggar-wretch," — 

"This brigand whom the Pope hath blessed in 

all his sin ; 
This sceptre-fingering, this crowbar-handed 

one ; 
This Charlemagne by the devil hewn out of a 

Manadrin," 

as he called him in a poem of " Les 
Chatiments," wherein also he declared 



that while the great criminal reigned in 
France, he accepted exile, " have it nor 
end nor term " : — 

'■lie there a thousand, I am one; or if our 

strength 
Have hut one hundred left, Sylla is braved by 

me ; 
If only ten continue, I will be the tenth; 
And if lint erne remain, 1 then that one will be." 

After Hugo's death the London 
" Times " cavilled, as it had in his life, 
at his constant appeals in behalf of 
causes for charity or pity, declaring that 
he did little for humanity, and that his 
sentiinentalisni was rather vague and 
inoperative. This was unfair and un- 
generous. Victor Hugo was as thorough 
a warrior for ideals as were William 
Lloyd Garrison or John Brown; he 
was ready at any time to lay down 
his life or sacrifice his fortune for the 
truth. Some far-off day, when the hu- 
man race shudders as it remembers that 
society once practised capital punish- 
ment upon criminals — thus announcing 
its own disbelief in that sacredness 
of human life which it sought to teach 
— tin 1 passionate and constant protests 
of Hugo against the barbarity of exe- 
cutioners will be treasured as memo- 
rials of a courage which has had few 
equals in the nineteenth century. His 
sentimental appeals have done more 
for the progress of liberalism in legisla- 
tion and in thought in Europe than a 



EUROPE IN .STORM AND CALM. 



837 



score of the most prominent English 
writers have effected. Reformer, with a 
pen tipped with lire, the good man 
wrote his denunciations of shams and 
tyrannies without the smallest regard for 
the rvil consequences which his daring 
might bring upon himself. The praises 
at this moment accorded him in France 
are somewhat extravagant ; yet it is not 
too much to say that no other man has left 
so strong an impression on this century. 
Hugo may be said to have had three 
lives- — through all of which nms a con- 
sistent thread of noble effort for the 
improvement of humanity. Even in his 
earlier poems he is already the vah s. 
The things say themselves; he is but 
the medium; his spirit is a delicate lyre 
through which the wind of the world 
flows, awakening it to harmonious notes, 
now tender, now martial. In his middle 
life of struggle and exile he appears 
both as riilt's and as consummate artist. 
He hears the voices of the hidden choir, 
and in reporting their messages to men 
he clothes them in most felicitous phrase. 
All that he does, he does best ; it is 
pitched in exalted key; his subject, as 
Emerson said of poetry, is always 
"lifted into air." In the final period, 
when struggle is over, and when he is 
looking back, with gaze chastened and 
cleared by earthly sorrows, his whole 
strength is turned to the task of preach- 
ing love, reconciliation, forgiveness, 
peace. In Senate and in his library he 
labored for mercy, for the comfort of the 
toiling masses, for the pacific accom- 
plishment of social reform. He was an 
advanced republican of the highest type ; 
and the sentiments which he so boldly 
proposed will do more than anything 
eKe to bring about disarmament, arbitra- 
tion, sincerity in polities. Men said 
" the age of Voltaire ; " they will say 
" the age of Hugo." 



The burial of the great man was 
preceded and accompanied by the most 
elaborate and exceptional ceremonies. 
notwithstanding that in his will he had 
written that he wished to lie borne to his 
grave in the hearse of the poor. A 
committee representing the best in French 
literature, painting, and sculpture made 
preparations to celebrate the dead ; the 
government decreed the secularization of 
the Pantheon to receive his remains, and 
to the great scandal of the Roman ( Ihurch 
the stone cross that surmounted its portals 
was hewn off in visible symbol of the 
divorce of religion from the temple which 
Louis the Well-Beloved built; which 
the Revolution in 1791 consecrated to the 
illustrious dead of the nation, entomb- 
ing therein Voltaire, and Rousseau, and 
Mirabeau ; which the Bourbons restored 
to the Church, and called by the name 
of Ste. Genevieve, and which the pious 
Louis Napoleon, in 1851, gave back to 
the Church after another brief period of 
popular possession. There was a certain 
fitness that Hugo's sepulture should undo 
the consecration given by the grace of 
Napoleon Le Petit. His body could 
not have been buried there while the 
Church held the splendid building, for 
bell or book Hugo would have none. 
Not that he was irreligious ; although he 
refused the visit of a priest in his last 
hours, he was not without God in the 
world. In his will, or testament mystique, 
as it is called, Hugo made a philosophical 
explanation of his beliefs. lie has 
always and on all public occasions, when 
it seemed appropriate, affirmed his belief 
in Cod. His contempt for the modern 
materialist was nearly as great as his 
scorn for the bigot, Catholic or Protes- 
tant. His religion was the religion of 
humanity ; love was its central and in- 
forming purpose ; love for God, love for 
his neighbor. 



83* 



EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 



All funerals in France are surrounded 
with many ceremonious observances; 
the pomp of death is, indeed, given a sort 
of luxurious indulgence, and there has 
never yet been a thought of adding 
"Please omit flowers" to the elaborate 
letters of invitation which are always 
dispatched to friends by the nearest 
relative of the deceased, on heavy black- 
bordered paper, folded over and mailed 
without envelopes. When the dead is a 
distinguished man or woman there are 
more pains taken, and among the features 
of French news always are the funerals 
of notables. Such an occasion has more 
than once centred or started a popular 
movement, and the government always 
has a careful oversight of the burial of the 
great, as it had over that of Victor Hugo. 
The Conservatives and the Monarchists 
had the notion that the funeral parade 
would be made the occasion for a mani- 
festation against property, or, possibly, 
against the government, by the Anarch- 
ists ; in fact, the bourgeois were in a 
veritable funk. The Catholics felt that 
should the funeral be disgraced in some 
way by misconduct of the assembled 
thousands, they might say, "You see to 
what a secular funeral leads." But these 
were all disappointed. The management 
of funerals in Paris is under the charge 
of the Pompes Fun&bres, a cooperative 
society under government patronage, 
which has the monopoly of the trade in 
Collins, so that there are no undertakers' 
shops in Paris, and which supplies the 
entire machinery of the funeral at a 
fixed price, set down in a printed tariff. 
A State funeral, like that of Henri Mar- 
tin, the historian, costs some 15,000 
francs, ami the Pompes Funebres furnishes 
a master of ceremonies, a corps of official 
mourners, huge mortuary carriages and 
a eolossal hearse, while the government 
adds a military escort and immortelles. 



The Pompes Funebres did its best to 
fulfil the demands of the great occasion 
of Hugo's burial ; but most of the dis- 
play was quite beyond its power and 
scope. Greater honors were paid to the 
poet than have been paid to any sover- 
eign of France for three hundred years, 
notwithstanding his desire for a modest 
burial, beside the remains of his wife and 
daughter, which lie in the little grave- 
yard of the parish church of Villequier, 
on the right bank of the Seine, halfway 
between Rouen and Havre. The people 
would not have it so. and thus, although 
his body was borne to its rest on the 
pauper's hearse, it was as the centre of a 
triumphal procession, and, although no 
church rites were observed, there were 
such spontaneous demonstrations of 
affection and admiration by the people 
as rendered the perfunctory honors of 
clerical routine quite insignificant. The 
assembly voted 20,000 francs for the 
funeral expenses. Committees were ap- 
pointed of the Senate, of which Victor 
Hugo was a member, and of the Chamber 
of Deputies, to attend the obsequies. 
Deputations were appointed from all 
parts of France and Europe, from munici- 
palities, and from societies. From the 
Academy were sent the last four members 
elected to the fellowship of the Forty 
Immortals, — Pailleron,Mazade,Coppc5e, 
and De Lesseps. The list of the depu- 
tations tilled seven and a half closely 
printed columns of a large journal the 
evening before the funeral. 

The body of Victor Hugo was laid in 
state, beneath the Arch of Triumph, 
during Sunday, May 31. The evening 
before it had been placed in the coffin, 
in the presence of witnesses, among 
whom were Mine. Lockroy (mother of 
Georges and Jeanne Hugo, the poet's 
grandchildren), Auguste Vacquerie, Paul 
Meurice, and Leopold Hugo. In the 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



839 



inner coffin beside the body were placed 
the photographs of Hugo's children and 
grandchildren, a bronze medallion of the 
elder Vacquerie, — the husband of Hugo's 
favorite daughter, Leopoldine, and sharer 
of her tragic death by the oversetting of 
a boat forty years ago; bronze medals 
of Hugo's face, and a bouquet of roses. 
Then the coffins were closed, and early 
Sunday morning, in the dawn of a beau- 
tiful day, the employes of the Pompes 
Fun&bres carried their charge to the 
Triumphal Arch, hoping at that hour to 
be uninterrupted in their work of installa- 
tion within the catafalque. But so great 
was the curiosity of the people that by 
the time the wagon containing the body 
readied the Arch there was a compact 
crowd of ten thousand men, with un- 
covered heads, all around the square of 
the Etoile. The catafalque was very 
high, and immense black velvet draper- 
ies, seamed with silver, hung around it, 
while al! around were heaps of flowers 
and wreaths, several feet high. The 
receptacle for the coffin was in form like 
a vast sarcophagus, black and silver. 
placed upon a double pedestal, and deco- 
rated in front with a crown traversed by 
palms, and a medallion of the Republic, 
with these words beneath: ' l Liberty, 
Equality, and Fraternity." This sarcoph- 
agus was so artfully arranged that 
from whichever point one approached the 
Arch its black and silver were distinctly 
seen. Great mourning bands of crape 
were artistically draped from the summit 
to the base of the mighty Arch. The 
catafalque was half buried beneath 
flowers whose perfume loaded the air. 
The " lost provinces " were given a prom- 
inent place, ami among the inscriptions 
were : " The City of Strasburg to Victor 
Hugo;" "The City of Mulhouse ; " 
" The Ladies of Thann to Hugo." Near 
by was a handsome wreath bearing the 



words : " The City of Boston to Victor 
Hugo." Under the superb sunshine of 
the afternoon the spectacle — with the 
faces of flags draped in black, the mam- 
moth lampadaires placed in a circle 
around the Arch, the shields bearing 
the names of the poet's works, and the 
unending crowds passing with bowed 
heads — was vastly impressive. Ateven- 
ing, after the torches were lighted, the 
scene was weird. The glitter of the 
uniforms of the cavalry ami infantry 
guards, the innocent faces of the young 
children from the school battalions, the 
uplifted visages of the rough men pass- 
ing by, many with eyes brimful of tears 
as they came beneath the Arch, the 
reverent hum of the myriads of voices, 
— all these were imposing. The Master 
reposed beneath the monument which he 
had so often celebrated in his verse, — the 
monument which celebrates the victories 
of Jemappes, Marengo, Zurich, Hohen- 
linden, Austerlitz, Eylau. Above and 
around him were inscribed the names of 
three hundred and eigbty-six generals 
and one hundred and twenty-six vic- 
tories. Behind his sarcophagus stretched 
the Avenue de la Grande Armee. 

The grand procession and the entomb- 
ment in the Pantheon, on Monday, June 
1, were characterized by features which 
made them unprecedented in Paris. No 

such number of ] pie has [passed under 

the Triumphal Arch during one day since 
tlir return of the ashes of Napoleon the 
Great to the Invalides. But on that occa- 
sion nothing like the enormous throng 
which gathered this morning on the 
Place l'Etoile was seen. By noon there 
were certainly 750,000 people in the area 
between the Tuileries Gardens and the 
Porte Maillot and the net- work of streets 
radiating in all directions from the Arch. 
By nine o'clock, the hour appointed for 
the assembling of the hundreds of asso- 



840 



EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 



(nations, which wore divided into no less 
than twenty-eight different groups, the 
morning was cool and bright, and the 
thrones were in the best of good-humor. 
All the exaggerated notions of the Con- 
servatives about the danger of a Com- 
munistic demonstration were rendered 
groundless by the energetic actiou of the 
police agents, who, whenever they saw 
a delegation headed by a red flag, took 
possession of the emblem, advising the 
manifestors not to resist, as it might be 
unpleasant for them to do so in the midst 
of a crowd whose majority were cer- 
tainly anti-Communistic in sentiment. 
There were but eighteen red flags brought 
from the whole of the ( lommunist quarter 
of Paris and from the various cities of 
France, and these were taken away, to 
be handed back on the morrow to those 
who could show t i tit- to them. The whole 
clerical party professed to believe, up to 
the last moment of the procession's pas- 
sage along its line of route, that there 
would be scenes of wild disorder, and 
that the Commune would make itself 
visible and demonstrate its growing 
strength. The Ministry felt that there 
would be no manifestation, both because 
it could have been instantly suppressed, 
and because even the Anarchists had 
decency and sense of consistency enough 
to see that it, would be wrong to mani- 
fest at Hugo's funeral. 

Those who were fortunate enough to 
be in the immediate neighborhood of the 
Arch, and to look down upon the scene 
of the official ceremony, found it verv 
picturesque and entertaining. There 
were the official delegations, accompanied 
by brilliant escorts of cuirassiers, the 
generals and presidents who repre- 
sented the military household of the 
President of the Republic, all the 
officers of the Legion of Honor, the 
Ministry, the Diplomatic Corps, the 



Senate, the Chamber, the twenty Mayors 
of Paris, the Municipal Councillors, the 
Academicians in their somewhat gro- 
tesque uniforms; all these being harmo- 
niously grouped about the towering 

catafalque, which si 1 in bold relief 

against the brilliant blue of the sky. 
The official speeches began. Of course 
only those who were close at hand could 
hear them, and those who were far away 
missed little, for, with few exceptions, 
the speaking was dry and tame. Emile 
Augier, the poet's old friend, said some 
eloquent words, declaring that the occa- 
sion was not a funeral, but a consecra- 
tion ; and Minister Floquet entered into 
direct rivalry with him by pronouncing 
it not a funeral, but an apotheosis. 
Hugo, said Floquet, was the immortal 
apostle who bequeathed to humanity that 
gospel which could lead the people to 
the definitive conquest of '* Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity." M. Goblet, 
president of the Chambers of Deputies, 
declared that Victor Hugo will remain 
the highest personification of the nine- 
teenth century, the history of which, in 
its contradictions, doubts, ideas, and 
aspirations, was best reflected in his 
works. 

While the speeches were going on, down 
below, along the slopes of the Champs 
Fly sees, thousands of workmen and work- 
women were driving a brisk trade in the 
leasing of ladders and the tops of 
wagons, chairs, improvised platforms, 
and other expedients for allowing the 
late-comers to see over the heads of the 
more fortunate ones who had preceded 
them. Ambulating merchants sold sau- 
sages and beer, cider, wine, and brandy 
to the thirsty and hungry, who had left 
their homes before dawn in order to be 
in time for the procession's passage. 
The lame and blind beggars sprawled 
upon the sidewalk ; the blue-bloused 



EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 



841 



workmen chatted and laughed ; and, in- 
deed, the whole mass of the populace 
evidently regarded the day more as a 
celebration of Hugo's glory than as the 
sombre occasion of his funeral rites. 
This was well enough, for mourning was 
a week old, and the real demonstrations 
of grief on the part of the people were 
sincere and voluminous enough when 
the news of the old poet's death was 
first announced. It should not he for- 
gotten, too, that the "people" meant to 
manifest, and did it, on the whole, in a 
very intelligent fashion. 

The funeral was a little more than 
twice as large as that of Gambetta. 
The black masses of delegations which 
came into view in front of the Arch 
seemed endless. They were not very 
entertaining, — on the contrary, somewhat 
monotonous ; but their numbers were 
overpowering. The wreaths, crowns, 
inscriptions, beds and banks of flowers, 
borne in the procession, are said to have 
cost about three millions of francs. In 
this show the hearse of Hugo was a 
sombre spot. It was the same in which 
Jules Valles, the Communist, had short- 
ly before been borne to his last abode 
Of the plainest description, even tin' 
humble ornaments which usually be- 
deck it were removed. Within the 
hearse was placed the coffin, draped with 
a black cloth, and two laurel wreaths 



were placed at its head. Thousands 
upon thousands of school children, ar- 
ranged in what are called the school 
battalions, and arrayed as soldiers and 
sailors, and many thousands of the 
young men enrolled in the gymnastic 
corps, were in the parade. There was 
also a vast throng of Freemasons, and 
the military parade was quite large. 
The Army of Paris, as (he corps of 
20,000 or30,000 men. all stationed here, 
is called, was on duty. Thousands of 
soldiers formed a. kind of living hedge 
to keep back the enthusiastic spectators ; 
other thousands headed the procession, 
and kept guard over the eleven great 
chariots heaped with flowers and 
wreaths; and still other thousands 
brought up the rear, the sparkling com- 
pany of infantry, cavalry, and artillery 
being interspersed with many bands of 
music. At the corner of the Luxem- 
bourg garden, where a statue of Victor 
Hugo has been erected, each group 
halted and the bands played a funeral 
march. All heads were bared when the 
simple hearse passed. The steps of the 
Pantheon were covered yards high with 
flowers. By four o'clock the last word 
had been said, and the body of Victor 
Hugo was borne to the vault in the crypt, 
and laid to rest beside the tomb of 
Rousseau. 



842 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE 



Laborers for Peace. — The New Territories given to European Powers by the Congo Conference. — ■ 
Impossibility of Permanent Peace. — Believers in Arbitration. — M. De Lesseps and Mr. Stanley. — 
The United States of Europe. — Victor Hugo's Dream. — Republican Sentiment. — The Strengthen- 
ing of the French Republic. — Will Storm and Calm Forever Alternate in Europe ? 



ENTHUSIASTIC believers in the 
possibility of permanent peace in 

the world might derive some support for 




KING ii].' BELGIUM. 

their belief from the fact that so many 
men in exalted station are engaged in 
pacific enterprises, rather than in those of 
conquest. They could point to the King of 
the Belgians as a conspicuous instance of 
one, who, aided by the ablest and wisest 
of lieutenants, has made what might 
have been a sanguinary and reprehensi- 
ble conquest only a tranquil, although 



resistless, pushing forward of civilization 
into the troubled wilderness. Mr. Stan- 
ley's story and his relation to the King 
of the Belgians in their joint magnificent 
enterprise are now well-known through- 
out the world. As the result <>f the Congo 
Congress, mentioned in a preceding 
chapter, there has been a greater exten- 
sion of European influence over African 
territory than is generally supposed. 
Mr. Stanley himself, in his terse and 
excellent account of the Conference, 
says : '• Two European powers emerge 
out of the elaborate discussions, pro- 
tracted for such a long period, with 
enormously increased colonial posses- 
sions. France is now mistress of a West 
African territory, noble in its dimensions, 
equal to the best tropic lands for its 
vegetable productions, rich in mineral 
resources, most promising for its future 
commercial importance. In area it 
covers a superficies of two hundred and 
fifty-seven thousand square miles, equal 
to that of France and England combined, 
with access on the eastern side to five 
thousand two hundred miles of river 
navigation. On the west is a coast line 
nearly eight hundred miles long, washed 
by the Atlantic Ocean. It contains within 
its borders eighl spacious river basins, 
and throughout all its broad surface of 
ninety millions of square hectares not 
one utterly destitute of worth can be 
found. Portugal issues out of the 
Congress with a coast line nine hundred 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



843 



and ninety-five English miles in length, 
three hundred and fifty-one thousand 
square statute miles in extent, a territory 
larger than the combined areas of France, 
Belgium, Holland, and Great Britain. 
On the LowerCongo, its river-bank is one 
hundred and three miles in length. It can 
now boast of healthy pastoral lands to the 
south, oil and rubber producing forests 
northward, mineral fields in the north- 
eastern portion of its territory, and val- 
uable agricultural regions in its eastern 
borders. If herown population were added 
to the aboriginal population of this Afri- 
can colonial territory, and extended over 
its area, there would still be sufficient to 
give thirty-two and three-fourths acres to 
each Portuguese white and black subject. 
Her home and colonial populations of all 
colors number in all eight million three 
hundred thousand. The area of her terri- 
tories in Africa, Asia, and the Oceans 
measures seven hundred and forty-one 
thousand three hundred and forty-three 
square miles, or four hundred and seventy- 
four million five hundred thousand acres, 
— sufficient to give each subject fifty- 
seven acres. Great Britain, on the other 
hand, with all her vast acreage of five 
billion fifty-six million of acres, can 
only give to each of her two hundred and 
forty-nine millions of people the small 
portion of twenty and one-fourth acres. 
The International Association surren- 
dered its claims to sixty thousand three 
hundred and sixty-six square miles of 
territory to France, and to Portugal 
forty-five thousand four hundred square 
miles, for which consideration six 
hundred square miles of the north bank 
between Boma and the sea were conceded 
to it. besides cordial recognition of its 
remaining territorial rights from two 
powerful neighbors. To the world at 
large, the two powers above mentioned 
have been also duly considerate, for 



the territories surrendered to them by 
the Association have been consecrated 
to free trade, which, along with those 
recognized as belonging to the Associa- 
tion, and preordained for such uses, and 
those yet unclaimed by any power, but 
still reserved for the same privileges, 
form a domain equal to one million 
six hundred thousand square miles in 
extent, throughout which most excep- 



:-:-» 




m 



HENRY M. STANLEY. 



tional privileges have been secured by 
the cordial unanimity of the riveraine of 
the United States and European powers 
for commerce. With due reserve for the 
sovereign rights of Portugal and Zanzi- 
bar, this free trade area extends across 
Africa to within one degree of the east 
coast, thus enlarging the privileged com- 
mercial zone to two million four hundred 
thousand square miles." 

The acquisition of these immense 
territories by France and by Portugal, 
and the opening of the vast domain 
of the Free State to the one country 



844 



EUROPE 7,V STORM AND CALM. 



which could best profit by its opening, 
to Great Britain, — all this is emi- 
nently the work of Mr. Stanley, who has 
within less than fifteen years stepped 
from the position of a roving special cor- 
respondent to that of the first of modern 
explorers and a politician and diplomat 
of no mean order. 

All the distinctly great men in Europe, 
men of comprehensive vision and accu- 




M. DE LESSKPS. 



rate knowledge, are anxious for peace. 
Bismarck himself wants peace, and 
means to compel it by demonstrating 
the uselessness of undertaking to combat 
the armies which he could bring to bear 
against an intending enemy. Thiers, 
even after the rude shock which his 
theories of the balance of power in 
Europe had received in the Franco- 
German conflict, hoped that European 
peace might In' maintained, although 
in the very year of his death the conflict 
between Russia and Turkey was raging. 



There is little need to remind the Amer- 
ican reader that Mr. Gladstone is a firm 
disciple of peace, and that in these 
hitter days he is not averse to leading 
up to the general adoption of the great 
principle of arbitration in international 
disputes. 

All the intelligent and capable politi- 
cians in France want peace ; it is only 
the blustering and incompetent who 
clamor for a war of vengeance, or who 
would like to see France enter upon a 
policy of adventure, in connection even 
with the most illustrious allies. The 
poets, the philosophers, the great build- 
ers and engineers, men like the brilliant 
and phenomenal De Lesseps, are all in 
favor of peace, and the colossal vision 
of the old French poet — "the United 
States of Europe," of which he fondlv 
dreamed while in his exile amid the 
rocks of the Channel Islands, is often 
enough talked of as the forerunner of a 
possible reality. lint although kings 
labor in peaceful channels, and dip- 
lomats prepare war that they may main- 
tain peace, — although they establish 
formidable alliances to prevent the pos- 
sibility of sudden declarations of war, 
there is no man so wise and none so 
daring in Europe as to prophesy that 
the shadow of war may not fall across 
the historic lands ; that Europe may not 
once more, ami almost without warning, 
be plunged into a period of storm just 
as she is beginning to appreciate the 
blessings of calm. Every European 
country is making great material prog- 
ress, striving towards higher levels of 
education, of industry, of scientific and 
artistic attainment: but every one lias 
some quarrel with its neighbor, or is in 
some danger from surrounding nations. 
None is completely at case. The fed- 
eration of which the poet sinus may 
scarcely be expected before the more 



EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 



845 



powerful of the great States have ab- 
sorbed such of the smaller States as they 
wish to absorb. 

Men like M. De Lesseps and Mr. 
Stanley, in the calm and steadfast con- 
duet of their gigantic enterprises, do not 
reflect that they are sowing the seeds of 
possible conflict by opening up new 
fields for commerce and new highways 
to these fields. When M. De Lesseps 
dug his canals through the sands of 
Egypt, in die face of the sneers of Palm- 
erston, and indeed of uearly all 
Englishmen of influence, he scarcely 
thought that he was awakening jealous- 
ies which might endanger from time to 
time the friendly relations of France 
and England, neighbor countries which 
have every interest to remain at peace 
with each other; and he has always 
persistently denied, when led to express 
an opinion with regard to his Panama 
enterprise, that there was the slightest 
danger of a collision between European 
and American forces for the control of 
the huge water-way connecting the At- 
lantic and Pacific oceans. Perhaps Mr. 
Stanley, now and then remembering the 
conflicts along the sandy shores of 
Florida and on the lower Mississippi 
between European nations long ago. re- 
flects that France and Germany, or 
Great Britain and competing European 
powers, may yet join battle beside the 
waters of the Congo. Wherever trading 
interests begin to conflict, war follows 
with its devastating tread. There is 
scarcely a war in the European calendar 
since the beginning of the century which 
is not directly or indirectly due to some 
difference about trade or to some deter- 
mined effort to divert trade from one 
channel to another. Europe sighs for 
peace, but there is no peace ; so long as 
interests are diverse, ambitions mani- 
fold, and the heart of man is above all 



things deceitful and desperately wicked, 
storm and calm must have alternate rule. 
The folly of an incapable monarch, the 
precipitation of a prime minister, or the 
energy of a merchant, — any one of 
these causes may plunge nations into 
the miseries of conflict, waste untold 
millions, and ruin scores of thousands of 
lives. 

It is difficult to find, in the growth of 
Republican sentiment in Europe, any 
definite guarantee of peace. The French 
Republic has been so busy with struggles 
to maintain and assert its existence that 
it has taken no thought of foreign war 
further than to prepare against a second 
disastrous invasion of its eastern frontier. 
If Germany should by some cataclysm 
be transformed into a Republic, it must 
of necessity be for long years to come a 
military power, ambitious, and perhaps 
more aggressive than the present Empire 
has been. The slow unfolding of Re- 
publican principles in many European 
countries serves, in a certain way, to 
promote European dissensions. It 
unites Catholic parties of different nation- 
alities into one compact body, ready to 
rise at the bidding of a capable leader 
against nations and peoples against 
whom it would otherwise have no hos- 
tility. There is no denying that the in- 
fluence of the Roman church is against 
the rise of the people to power. " Gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, 
and for the people," does not consist 
with the secular claims of the Pope. 
The unfriendliness of Church and State 
in France is notorious, and naturally in- 
creases when the Commune rears its 
hateful head in the Assembly, or in the 
City Council of Paris, as it is doing of 
late, or when the government secularizes 
the Pantheon to bury Victor Hugo. The 
maintenance by the Pope of his studied 
pose as "the prisoner of the Vatican" 



846 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



is nothing but a refusal to recognize that 
the people have the supreme and ulti- 
mate right to choose their own govern- 
ment. In Spain it is the clerical party 
that retards the advance of the Republic, 
more than any love for monarchy. The 




KING OF SPAIN. 



young king is pursuing the only safe 
course for kings nowadays, living simply 
and showing himself deeply concerned in 

the welfare of his people. 

Monarchical diplomats, while profess- 
ing to look upon (he growth of Republi- 
can spirit with equanimity, are constantly 
watching an opportunity to do the Re- 
publican cause :i bad turn. It is not 
unreasonable to suppose that as this 
liberalism becomes more intense and 
wide-spread in Europe, conservatives who 
have heretofore held apart from each 
other should lloek together for mutual 
support. At this moment the English 
Tories offer a line illustration of this 
particular fact, striving to cooperate with 



Germany, a power really hostile to many 
of England's greatest interests abroad, 
simply because I hey wish support in their 
opposition to the democratic programme 

at home. 

There is no space here to treat in 
detail the growth of the one European 
Republic which has demonstrated its 
right to live during the last few years. 
Founded by its enemies in spite of them- 
selves, and narrowly escaping .strangula- 
tion in its cradle, the French Republic, 
after numerous vicissitudes since 1*77, 
has reached a point at which it is afraid 
neither of resolute conservatives nor 
half-crazed radicals. M. Thiers, who 
had the reward of his great services 
during the war and the German occupa- 
tion in his accession to the presidency, 
fell before the reactionists, but lived 
long enough to feel that the Republic 
would ultimately triumph. Marshal 
MacMahon, who inaugurated the septen- 
nial presidencies, doubtless acted ac- 
cording to his lights while in the exalted 
office. He was not strong enough, 
however, to prevent the monstrous injus- 
tice of the counter-revolution of 1877, 
as it came to be known in European 
politics. This was a deliberate attempt 
on the part of ministers hostile to the 
Republic t<> inaugurate a state of terror- 
ism which should render the reestablish- 
inent of monarchy possible. In other 
words, the conservatives, who had been 
growing bolder daily since the fall from 
power of Thiers, desired to provoke the 
Republicans into some breach of the 
public peace, and then, setting up the 
old civ of the necessity of order, gel a 
monarch in before Republican institutions 
began to take root. The magnificent 
prudence of ( lambetta under the greatest 
provocation during this whole period of 
repression added immensely to his repu- 
tation. It showed that he was well 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



847 



qualified to take the lead in the moderate guished men from all parts of France 
Republican party which was afterwards and of Europe, between lines of silent 
admitted to be liis natural right. Even men and women, was a warning to the 
Thiers was surprised to find Gambetta ministry in power that it could not turn 
so much of a statesman as he proved in a nation aside from its convictions. A 
that crisis. million of people on foot, in Paris on that 

The Bonapartists were active, but not September day proclaimed their devotion 
in the front of this conspiracy against to the Republican idea which Thiers 
the Republic. The death of Napoleon had so frankly defended, after having 
III., in 1873, in the sylvan 
seclusion of Chiselhurst, in 
England, removed the chief 
pretender from the scene. 
and but little fear was had 
of the movements of his son, 
who was cpiietly finishing his 
education in an English mili- 
tary academy. But no one 
knows what party might have 
come uppermost had a breach 
of order been provoked and 
the Republic destroyed in 
1877. It was inexpressibly 
sad that M. Thiers should 
pass away when this cloud 
of darkness was over the 
country for which he had 
done so much, — sad that his 
last days might not have 
been cheered by the spectacle 
of a successful liberal govern- 
ment, like that to which he 
frankly owned his own con- 
version. The funeral of this great 
and good man, on the 8th of Sep- 
tember, 1*77, was one of the most 
striking spectacles that I ever wit- 
nessed. The Republican party intended 
to make it a tremendous manifestation, 
but felt the necessity, in doing this, of lived in Europe can form any adequate 
preventing, at all cost, any violence or idea of the pressure brought to bear 
display of strong emotion, as this would upon Republicans during this year of 
have afforded a pretext for the repression 1877 in France. The whole weight of 
which was ready to hand. The dead prejudice, of the prestige of centuries 
Thiers, followed to Pere La Chaise by of wealth, of established religion, was 
thousands upon thousands of distin- brought to bear upon liberals; and the 




THE END OF A ROMANCE. NAPOLEON III. ON niS 
DEATH-HEP. 



been, as he was wont to say, a monarch- 
ist almost all his life. Paris, on that 
day, learned a lesson of self-control 
which has been very useful to it in 
many troublous times later on. 

No American reader who has not 



848 



EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 



burden was so grievous that at times 
they could scarcely support it. Distin- 
guished orators and publicists were 
compelled to speak in little and ill- 
ventilated halls, to which none but their 
constituents were admitted, and these 
by ticket, in the old, stingy fashion in 
force under the Empire. Public meet- 
ings in their broadest sense were un- 
known. Louis Blanc refused me a 
ticket to one of his addresses before 
his constituents, saying, that if I were 
recognized as a non-voter the conse- 
quences for me and for the controllers of 
the meeting- would lie most unpleasant. 

When this final conservative effort was 
at an end, and the weights were taken 
from the Republic's breast, there was 
rapid progress for several years ; yetthe 
almost, majestic programmes of men like 
Gambetta \\fvi.' thwarted and even set 
aside because of the jealousies of inferior 
men, the intrigues of churchmen and of 
specialists. Gambetta had a tine political 
career as President of the Chamber, in 
which official position he was very power- 
ful ; but his enemies, after having crowded 
him out of the presidential chair and 
forced him into the ministry, which he 
did not wish to enter, merely that they 
might have the pleasure of compelling 
him to leave it afterwards, made his 
latter days unhappy. His death, which 
was caused by a pistol wound in one of 
his hands at a time when his system was 
greatly enfeebled, would have been a 
catastrophe for the Republic hail lie not 
left behind him capable men who could 
carry out the brilliant programme he 
had sketched. lie left behind him not 
only this noble plan, but an untarnished 
reputation as an administrator in troub- 
lous times. Looking at his picture the 
night after his strong and earnest life 
ended with the year 1882, I was pro- 
foundly impressed with the abundant 



vigor with which his face was filled. It 
was not a handsome face, nor yet an 
artistic or refined one; but a stranger 
who had heard little of Gambetta, and 
who had never seen him, would say, in 
contemplating it. " This is the face of a 
man of vast power, who would overcome 
obstacles (insurmountable by other men, 
who would not lie cast down in adversity; 
a man fertile in surprises, abounding in 
unexpecting triumphs, capable of turning 
imminent danger into immediate victory." 
He will long be remembered as the pas- 
sionately eloquent lawyer, the defender of 
Baudin, the mighty tribune, the brilliant 
member of the opposition to the Second 
Empire, the ex-dictator, the fiery soul 
which could not brook the idea of tame 
.submission even when all hope was lost, 
the noble parliamentarian, the sincere 
Republican, the patriot, the admit and 
far-seeing Republican. He was the 
fountain from which sprang the Re- 
publican energy. There were moments 
when Hie entire Republican organization 
of the country seemed epitomized in him. 
He was leader, teacher, master, father, 
mentor. 

It was commonly said in Germany, 
after Gambetta and Skobeleff had both 
disappeared from the scene of European 
action, that Prussia had been spared by 
providential intervention in her behalf a 
tremendous campaign against her. It is 
certain that General Skobeleff — whose 
brilliant young life was cut short by a 
swift stroke of fate in Moscow, where he 
was sojourning in one of the intervals of 
his busy military career — and Gambetta 
were both much in favor of a war against 
Germany ; a war the date for which was 
by no means decided on ; a war which could 
not be indefinitely postponed. Taken 
between the millstones of Russia and 
of France, some of the German peoples 
might possibly have been crushed. 



EUROl'E IN STURM AND CALM. 



N4!l 



After the death of the Prince Imperial, 
as the English people still continue to 
call the son of Napoleon III., the hopes 
of the Imperialist party in France fell to 
the ground. The young prince had had a 
good military training, and was a gallant 
soldier ; but his skill and zeal availed 
him nothing against the arrows of a few 
naked South Africans, and he was brought 
home to lie in the little chapel of St. 
Mary's at Chiselhurst, to which the 
Empress makes melancholy pilgrimages, 
often mournfully alluding to it as the 
shrine which holds the wreck of all her 
earthly grandeur and her hopes. The 
funeral of this young prince at Chisel- 
hurst was a very remarkable affair. It 
brought out the whole strength of the 
English aristocracy, which adopted the 
occasion as a kind of manifestation, even 
the Queen coming to pay her last respects 
to the son of Napoleon III. It was observ- 
able, however, that there were but few 
French people present, and scarcely any 
who represented the highest genius or 
intelligence of France. 

The Republic goes steadily on its way 
rejoicing, now and then in fear and 
trembling, but never retreating, and its 
influence in Europe is wider than is 
imagined by even the most enthusiastic 
French Republican. Threatened men, it 
is said, live loug ; and the downfall of 
the Republic has been predicted so often 
by England, Germany, even Italy, by 
Austria, by Spain, and by other powers 
too numerous to mention, that its longev- 
ity is now believed in. It had but one 
victory to accomplish, — the victory over 
itself, over its follies and licenses, which 
had been so conspicuous in the past ; 
and when the huge pageant, greater than 
any ever before seen in Paris, poured 
through the Champs Elysees the other 
day, behind a simple hearse, in which the 
bodj' of the master poet of his time was 
carried to the Pantheon, it was notice- 



able that Jacobinism and anarchy were 
scarcely represented at all in the throng; 
and even Jacobins and anarchists who 
had the audacity to parade were com- 
pelled before they took part in the 
procession to lay aside their flags and 
emblems. On the day of Victor Hugo's 
burial listening Europe seemed to hear 
a voice from the Pantheon pleaching, as 




PRESIDENT GRfeVY. 

the poet had preached all his life long, 
peace and good-will, fraternity of peoples, 
unity of action and of sentiment, the 
abolition of superstitions and formular- 
isms, diffusion of education and of light, 
pardon, reconciliation, and hopeful 
struggle towards the highest ideal. Eu- 
rope listened ; but will she take the 
words to heart? Will she not alternate 
from storm to calm, from calm to storm, 
through the latter years of this century, 
as she has through its first and middle 
periods, putting away from her the noble 
epoch of continuous peace and harmony 
which the venerable poet so boldly pro- 
claimed ? 



INDEX 



Adam, M. Edmond, and the National Guard, 231. 

Agriculti rj in Roumania, 741. 

Alamenos, ( ieneral, 70. 

Am. i ii Edward, Prince of Wales, Income of, 560. 

— Influence of, .it home and abroad, 661. 

Household of, 568. 

Alcazar, The, History of, 118. 

— Cathedral of the, 119. 

— Gardens of the, 130. 

— De San Juan, 123. 

Alcott, in Paris during the Revolution, 488. 
Alexander II., of Russia, Attempted assassination of , 26. 

— Vis ; t to Paris, 25. 
Alfonso XI I., King of Spain, 71). 

— Marriage of, 93, 

— At a Bull-fight, 103, 
Alfonso the Good, 129. 

\ i ■ .i i [A, Political prisoners in, 45. 
Allard, The Abb6, Execution of, 4%. 
Alsatia demanded by the Germans, 272. 
Alsatians, The protest of, 388. 
Alvaro Dk Luna, Don, 121, 
Amadei • of Italy, 78. 

Ambulance Companies, during the Commune, 447. 
American Minister, The, in Paris during the Com- 
mune, 444. 
Americans in Paris during the Commune, 431, 480. 
Andalusia, 125. 
Andrassy, t 'mini, 672. 

Antonelli, I .udin.il, and Leo XIII., 415. 
Apennines, The, Tunnels through, 404, 
* f Appeal to the People," The, 44. 
Apsley 1 [i "■■-[■ , 631 . 
Arabi Bey, Revolt of, 821. 
Aranjuez, 91 

Arbitration, The belii vers in, *44. 
Arc de Triomphe, The, Statuary on, 451. 
Archbishop oi Pari . Arrest of, 446, 
Archer, Fred, in England and Paris 624. 
Argenteuil, View of Paris from, 334, 

— Effect of the wai in, 382 
Army of the Rhine, The, 321. 
Art in Spain, 111 

■\ 1. r-Si in 101 in 1 .midnn, 027. 
Assam, John, 711, 
A.SSI, Citizen, 449. 
Atocha Churi ir. 93, 

A i hen vi m ( '] re of Barcelona, 86. 

Ai i-i ■];, the composer, Reminiscences of, 467. 

^ i mm, during the siege of Paris, 279. 
Augier, Emile, at the funeral of V. Hugo, 840. 
Austria, The Emperor of , Characteristics and simple life 
of, 813 



Austria, Religion in, 81.1. 
Austrians, The, in Italy, 399. 
Avenue d'Italie, The prison in the, 497. 
Avenue de la Grande Arm^e, 144. 



Baccaro, Dominique, 505. 

Bailen, Duchess of. 95, 

Baker, Sir Samuel, in the Soudan, 825. 

Baldwin I., 776. 

Balkans, The neighborhood of the, 766. 

— Through the, 772. 

■ — The Russians in the, 783. 
Banderillero, The (Bull-fighter), 106. 
Bank of England, The, 616 
Barbiek, A., and the VendOme Column, 4C8. 
Barcelona, Description of, 85. 

— To Valencia, Journey from, 86. 
Baroche's valor at Le Bourget, 324. 
Barrett, Wilson, 630. 
Bashi-bazouks, The, 756. 
Hatpin, 136. 

Bavaria, The monarchs of, 792-4. 

— The Royal Brewery in, 794, 

— Catholicism in, 795. 

I'.,\\ All a :■; Si ii DIERS, 216. 

Bayard, Statue of, 361. 

Bazaine, Marshal, and (ieneral Frossard, 202 

— Retreat upon Metz, 'JU7. 

— In Metz during the siege, 310. 

— Advice to his soldiers, 310. 

— His army at Metz, 316, 

— Course at Metz criticised, 319, 

i eilles to Illy, Fmin, after the war, 257. 
Bi \> onsi ield, Lord, Policy .if, 592. 

— And the Home Rulers, 651. 

— And Mr. Gladstom , 663. 

— His career, 664 

— His books, 666. 

— Personal description of, 668. 

— Return from Berlin, 669, 

— At the Berlin Congress, 7m;. 
Beaumont, Battle in, 243. 
Beaumont-Vassy, Vicomte de, 52. 
Belfast, 650. 

Belgians, The King of the, 842. 
Bei.lemare, General de, at Montretout, 3G8. 
Belleville, Procession through, 499 

— Episode during the fight at, 505. 
Benedetti, Count, and Bismarck, L53. 

— Visit to Ring William, 168. 



INDEX. 



851 



Benedict, Sir Julius, 627. 
Berlin and Bismarck, 816. 

— Congress, The Representatives at, 786. 
Its results, 790. 

— Treaty, The, 786. 
Bergeret imprisoned, 455. 
Berryer, M., Eloquence of, 145. 
Biarritz, Description of, 58. 
Birmingham, its history, 640. 

Bismarck, Count Von, at the Berlin Congress, 786. 

— In Paris during the Exposition of 1867, 28. 

— And Napoleon III., 152, 

— And Count Benedetti, 153, 

— In difficulty, 177. 

— And the surrender of Napoleon III., 252. 

— Interview with Napoleon III., 255. 

— And M. Jules Favre at Ferrieres, 270. 

— On the policy of France since Louis XIV., 271 

— Personal characteristics of, 273. 

— On Napoleon III., 274. 

— And General Boyer, 320. 

— At the Coronation at Versailles, 365. 
■ — And the National Guards, 368. 

— And Berlin, 816. 

— His influence in Europe and what it may lead to, 819. 
Black Cabinet in the Post-office, Paris, 463. 

Black Hand, or, Mano Negra, Society of the, 125. 
Blanc, Louis, Speech in the Assembly at Bordeaux, 394. 
Blanqui, Thirty years in prison. 474. 
Blois, The Imperial Court at, 176. 
Bois du Vesinet, French troops in, 369. 
Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Spain, 55. 

— Joseph, 126. 

— Prince Pierre, 133. 
Bondy, Ancient wood of, 349. 

— Massing of troops in, 350. 
Bonim, General Von, at Nancy, 290. 
Bonnemain, General, Celebrated charge of, 199. 

l'"i :I>i:.\l \ AssEMIU.Y, Tile, MS.".. 

Bosnia, History of the insurrection in 1875, 669. 
Boulogne, Burning of village of, 360. 
Bourbaki and Belfort, 366. 
Bourbon, Don Enrique do, 130. 
Bourbons in Spain, The fall of the, 67. 
Bradlaugh, Mr., in the Hall of Science, 600. 

— In London and Paris, 602. 
Brasseur's heroism, 324, 
Bridge of the Dead, 314, 
Bright, John, at Birmingham, 578. 

— His opinion of Gladstone, 668. 
Brighton, 529. 

Brindisi and Naples, 403. 
Broughton, George, 626. 
Bry-sur-Marne, Battle at, .'141. 
Browning, Robert, 634, 
Bucharest, The city of, 719. 

— The plague in, 720. 

— Routes to, 7211-1. 

— And New Orleans, 721. 

— Notes on, 723. 

— Legends of the Capital, 720. 

— The Podan Mogosoi", 723. 

— The priests in, 726. 

— The Metropolitan Church, 727. 

— St. Spiridion the New, 727. 

— Evidences of Turkish rule in, 733. 



Bucharest, Greek plays in, 740. 

— And Jassy, The towns between, 743. 
Buckingham Palace, Memorials of, 056. 
Bulgaria, The Russians in, 748. 

— Imperial headquarters at Tzarevitza, 753. 

— " Young Bulgaria " League, The, 763. 

— Insurrection of 1862, 763. 

— The Circassians in, 765. 

— Villages of the Pomatzy, The, 768. 

— Russian agents in, 764. 

— Schools of, 768. 

— Passes in, 771-2. 

— Sketch of the history of, 775. 

— Turkish rule and taxation in, 776-7. 

— The insane in, 777. 
Bulgarian atrocities, The, 672. 

— Men, 752. 

— Peasants, 752. 
Bulgarians, The, in 1851, 763. 
Bulgarian's views of the Bulgarian Question, 772. 
Bull-fighting in Madrid, 101-110. 

Burgos Cathedral, 60. 

Burgoyne, Sir John, saves the Empress, 238. 

Burnabv, Lieut. Col. Fred, Death of, 833. 

Burns, Robert, The home of, 647. 

Bute, Marquis of, 571. 

Buttes Chaumont, The final struggle on the, 509. 

Buzenval, Battle at, 371. 



C 

Caesar, Augustus, 64. 
Cafe" Americain, The, 471. 
Cambridge, The Duke of, 567. 
Canal de L'Ourcq, 348. 
Canrobert, General, 213. 
Carlists, The, 56. 

Caserne Lobau, Executions at the, 516. 
Castelar. Tour through Spain, 57. 

— Political career of, 78. 

— At home, 97. 

— And the United States, 98. 

— As a leader, 99. 

— And Gambetta. 100. 
Catalanian People, The, 85. 
Catholic ceremonial of marriage, 96. 
Cattaro, History of, 698. 

Cattaro toTsetti'nje, Journey from, 697-699. 
Cavendish, Lord F., Assassination of, 654. 
Cavour, Count, and the Austrians in Italy, 399. 
Cespedes; poet, painter, etc., 124. 
Chamberlain, Joseph, and Sir Charles Dilke, 594. 

— In Parliament, 604, 
Chambers, Sir William, 545. 
Chambord, Comte de, Protest of, 34. 
Champigny, Battle at, 341. 

— The country around after the battle, 346. 
Champ db Mars, Execution on the, 490. 
Champs Elysees, Communists in, 443. 
Changarnier, General, Plot of, 12. 

— Visit to Friederich Karl, 316. 

— Appeals for peace, 394. 

Chapel of "The new Kings," The, 122. 



852 



INDEX. 



Charles IV., 55. 
Chase, The, in France, 32. 
l. hateau d'Eau, The baitle at the, 500. 
The retreat ii , 505. 

— of Frascati, The, 316 
Chateaudun, Heroic defense of, 307. 
Chatillon, The fight at, 266. 

t ii a i swi »B mi, 641. 

Chaucer, hi Fleet Street, 610. 

Chaudey, Gustave, Murder of, 498. 

Chei les, Abbey of, 349. 

( in .iky, .Mr., editor uf the "Times," o'l8. 

Children of London and Paris, The, 521. 

Chiswick, Historic scenes in, 543. 

— IIivinrii.il events in, 543. 
Choisy-lb-Roi, after the war, Scenes in, 384. 
Christina, Archduchess, 94. 
Christmas in War Time, 354. 

Church and State in Spain, 79. 

— of La Trinite", The fight around, 488. 

— i if Sain i -I .aure mi , 504, 

— OF San Juan l>e uis Reyes, The, l'1'l, 

— of the Virgin del Pilar, The, 64. 
Cid < \mpeador, 101. 

i [ssv, * leneral, 501, 

City of Pleasure, The, 719. 

Civita Vecchia, French expedition to, 401, 

Clam art Railway Station, The fight £or, 459. 

Clarenton Barricade, The, 508, 

i i aii mi, M. Jules, on the Germans, 184. 

Clinchant, General, at Montmartre, 4^, 

— Attack on the Chateau d'Eau, 501. 
Clothilde, Princess, and the Empress, 38. 
Cluseret, General, at the head of the insurrection, 44(1, 448. 

— At the head, etc , 448. 

— At Fort [ssy, 455. 

— Arrest of, 455. 

— Trial of, 474, 

— Escapes to Constantinople, 503, 
Coblentz, Troops in, 185. 

Con MBI S, ( 'hristophei , 123. 
Commission of Assassins, The, 517. 
Communal Troops, The, 132. 

— Journalism, Notes on, 438 

— Instrui rioN Commission, Visit to, 449, 
Commune, The, Commencement of, 54. 

— First action of, 221. 

— Hard at work, 224, 

— Outbreak of the, (26 

— Declaration of the, 434. 

— Famous dei ree of, (37. 

— The hostages decree, 445. 

— The fete oi th. . 136 

I lit inipoi i. mi battle, 437. 

— A grand review . 450. 

— Armistice, 153 

— Touching episode during, 452. 

— The declamatory period, 4.~.7. 

— The cumhat at tin.' southern forts, 4.~x. 

— Suppresses the newspapers, 463 

— Journal of, 164, 

— And tic Established Church, 465. 

— Measures againsi social vices, 471. 

— Decree of the Committee "f Public Safety, 473. 

— The members of the, 17.". 
Communist Soldiers at Levallois, 461. 



Communist Prisoners, Massacre of, 514. 

t ommi msts. The, during the siege of Paris, 303. 

— And the landlords, 43T>. 

— At the funeral of V. Hugo, 840. 

— Methods of tiring houses, 4s.".. 
Compiegne, Imperial Court at, 31. 

— In tlie tune of Louis Philippe, 31. 

— Visit of the Emperor and Empress to, 37. 

— Amusements of the Court at, 38, 

— The programme of the season at, 38, 

— Visit of the King of Prussia to, 151. 
Com it de I.abokue, The, 125. 

CoN< [ERGERIE, The noted prison of the, 494. 

t • '■. de* , Prince of, 1 1:: 

( ONCO ( 'ONGRESS, The result of the, .S42. 

C< iNSl able of Castile, 121. 

Constantinople, General Gourko's descent upon, 784 ; 

The Turk in, 188 
Conti, M ,atthe Bordeaux Assembly. Exciting scenes, 392. 
Convent of h m salem, 66, 
' ■■■ .i.isi.f- Paris, Invasion of the, 4l'.u. 

Corps Legisi atif in 1852, 140. 
Invasion of the, 231 

( i iri ii i\ a, The city of, 124. 
CoRBEIL, The Prussians in, 207. 
Cortes, Palace of the, 112. 
< !oi Ni ii "i- S i Ai e, Palace of the, 493. 
G tup ii*Etat, The, 4:;. 

— Arrest of the deputies, 44. 

— Horrors of tin.-, 45-6. 

Cour des Comptes, Palace of the, 493. 

CoURBET, I iustave, member of the Communal Council, 475. 

Courtney, Mr , 589 

( '■ il l \ , t ololirl, 736. 

Covent < Iardens, The clubs in, 633, 
Cram , Sii 1 1 an< is, •"►44. 

CREIL, Scenes in, 432. 

Cromwell, Oliver, at Hampton Court, 550. 

( !rown Prince of Prussia, The, and Steinmetz, 203. 

At the Coronation at Versailles, 365. 

Crown Prince's Redoubt, The, 378. 
Crystal Palace, The, 544. 
Cuke of the Madeleine, Arrest of, 446. 
Curious Photograph, A, 518. 



D 

I >ai matia. The enr-.t of, 676. 
Dampierre, General, l'eath of, 304. 
Danube, rhi scenery of, 703-705. 
\ storm on, 706. 

— < Jypsies on, 7n7. 

— Wayside inns along the, 712. 

Dae ii v. Archbishop, Execution of. 496 
DeaUVILLE, Arrival of the Empress at, L'37. 
De Iaii i.v, General, at Beaumont, 242. 
Di E] ry, The Abbe, Execution of, 196. 
Delescli ze and the Communists, 456. 

— l'eath of, 502. 

De Lesseps M , and H. M. Stanley, S44. 
Democrai v in England, 591, 595. 

— Aims of, 596 
Derby, At the, 623, 



INDEX. 



853 



Derby Day, Scenes on the road, 624. 

— Earl, 571. 

Derbyshire, Rural beauty in, 639, 

Devonshire, Duke of, 592. 

De Wimpffen, General, Arrival at Metz, 244. 

— Character of, 24-".. 

— As General-in-Chief, 246. 

— Letter to Napoleon III., 248. 

— Quarrel with Ducrot, 251. 

— And Bismarck, 252. 

D'Hbrisson, Count. Account of the flight of the Em- 
press, 235. 
" Diana," The, 93. 

Dickens, Charles, as an after-dinner speaker, 544. 
Dieppe, The Germans at, 527. 
DlLKE, Sir Charles, at home and abroad, 594. 
Dimitriowski and General Radetzky, 758. 
Dogs, in the East, 711. 
Dombrowski, General, sketch of his career, 454. 

— Death of, 483. 

— His seven hundred horsemen, 484. 
Dominican Brothers, Massacre of the, 497. 
Don Carlos, 56. 

Don Emilio, 90. 

Dore in London, 538. 

Douay, General, at Weissenburg, 192. 

— In the Faubourg du Temple, 509. 
Douchan, Stephen, 671. 

Dragimiroff, General, Personal description of, 758. 
Drenkova, Gypsies at, 713. 
Dublin and its chief features, 658. 

— The environs of, 660. 

— And Liverpool, 662. 
Ducamp, Maxime, Criticism of, 465. 

— And M. Thiers, 512. 

Ducrot, General, in Strasbourg, 170. 

— Tactics of, criticised, 247. 

— Escape of, 322, 

— At Champigny, 341. 
Duffbrin, Lord, 651. 

Dupin, M. and Napoleon III., 33. 
Duval, Death of, 437. 



E 

Earle, General, in Egypt, 833. 

Eastern Question in 1875, 669. 

Ecumenical Council at Rome, The, 410. 

Edinburgh, old and new, Memorials of, 645. 

Edward, Prince, 565. 

Egypt, Battle at Tel-el-Kebir, 822. 

— The El Mahdi. 823 

— Battles at El Obeid ; Hicks Pasha and his force, 824. 

— The Mudir of Dongola ; Bombardment of Berber, 832. 

— Abu-Klea, 833. 

— The battle at Metemneh ; Fall of Khartoum, 834. 
Egyptian War, The origin (if, 821. 

El Gebir, 128. 

Eliot, George, 641 

Elizabeth, Queen, at Windsor Castle, 552. 

ELSASSHAUSEN to Morsbronn, 199, 

Elys£e, The, Palace of the, 4:;. 

Enghien, Battle near, 336. 

England and the food supply, 525. 

— Its fortifications, 528. 



England, The white cliffs of, 530. 

— Plain speaking in, 591. 

— Radicalism in, 591, 595. 

— Sources of revenue in, 594. 

— The coming struggle, 597. 

— Public meetings in, 604. 

— Fox-hunting in, 636. 

— Tenant farmers in, 636. 

— Rural beauty of, 638. 

— The Lake Country, 612. 

— And the Russo-Turkish War, 784. 
England's Soudan Campaign, 821-835. 
English Channel, The, 527. 

— Seaside resorts, 529. 

— Royalty, charges which it entails, 559. 

— Painters, 626. 

— Manners and dress, 629. 

— Army in 1878, Efficiency of, 786. 

— Royal Family : Queen Victoria, 553. 

Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 561. 

Princess of Wales, 561. 

Prince Edward, MI".. 

Duke of Edinburgh, 566. 

— Princess Louise, 566. 

— Duke of Connaught, 566. 

Duke of Albany, 566. 

— Duke of Cambridge, 567. 

Epernay, before and after the war, lst)3. 

Epinai after the war, 382. 

Episode in the Franco-German War, 382. 

Epitaph on Frederick, Prince of Wales, 563. 

Epoch of Unification, The, 148. 

Escott's England, Extracts from, 577,583. 

Escurial, The great vault of the, 62. 

Eski Zaghra, Destruction and massacre in, 773. 

Eudes, General, at the burning of Paris, 492. 

— Madame, 4!»4. 

Eugenie, Empress, and the war, 177. 

— Flight of, 235. 

— Dangerous passage across the Channel, 238. 

— Arrival in London, 238. 

— Despatch of, to Napoleon III., 239. 

— Wardrobe of, 239. 

— Library of, 262. 

Evans, Dr., and the Empress Eugenie, 236. 
Exiles, The, Return of, to France, ut>l . 
Expiatory Chapel, The destruction of, 472. 



F 

Faidherbe, General, at St. Quentin, 366. 
Failly, General de, 183. 

Faubourg St. Honore, The destruction on the, 49L 
Favre, Jules, in the Corps Legislatif, 143. 

— And Count Bismarck, 146. 

— And Ollivier, 220. 

— Speech and motion of, 224, 

— And Bismarck at Ferrieres, 270. 

— Impressions of Bismarck, 273. 

— Conclusion of the interview with Bismarck, 273. 

— Account of the insurreclion in Paris, 326, 

— Letter to Gambett.i. 340, 

— Mission to Versailles, 373. 

— And Bismarck at Versailles, 374. 

— Speech at the Bordeaux Assembly, 387. 



854 



INDEX. 



Ferdinand II, 128, 

Ferdinand VI 1 , . r >.~>. 

Ferke;, Theophile, Extract from letter of, 466. 

Fekrieres, Journey of M. Jules Favre to, 270, 

Fekrv, Jules, election in 1869, 141. 

— And the insurrection In Paris, 325. 
Figaro, I he, 50 

Financial Ki-h irm League, 1 he (London), 599. 

1' i rzHERBERT, Mrs , . r >4s, 

]■ i i , M and the visit of Alexander II. to Paris, 25. 

— At tli" obsequies of V. Hugo, 840. 
Flourens, Gustave, Failure and flight of, 163. 

— Heads the insurrection, 326, 

— Death of, 437. 

Forster, W, I' , m^\ the [rish Question, 653. 
Fort Issi . 360 

During tlie Revolution, 458 

France during the Second Empire, L'l-54. 

— Danger "I riots in, in IsTu, 158. 

— The " tribune," 150. 

— Events in, 1870, Hi."-. 

— Policy of, since Louis XIV., 271. 

— Funerals in , 838. 

— And tin- result of the Congo (.'(inference, 842. 
Franco-German War, The. 165-384 
Frankfort, Wounded soldiers at, 216. 

I- ren< h Empire in 1869, The, 132-136 

— Imperial press law and stamp tax, 138. 

— Chamber, opening ceremonies, Hu 

— Army, condition of the, in lsTn, 171'. 

— And Prussian histoi v. i Ireal • vents in, 318. 

— And German soldiers compared, i'.ii*. 
Friends of ' Irder, The, 428. 
Froshweiler, The village of, 198. 



G 

Gabrova, fight near. T t "> 4 . 

— The town of, 766-7, 

— Schools of, in 1871, 768 

— Convent foi women near, 771. 
Gai.atz, 744 

Gali iffet, Marquis de, and the deserters, 511. 
Gamisetta and Castelar, , r i7, 100, 

— And the Baudin subscription, L36 

— And the Reveil Journal, 136 

■ — Head of the " [rret on< ilables," 138. 

— In the Corps L^gislatif, Hi'. 

— And M Thiers' project, 230. 

— And the invasion of the Corps Legislatif, 231, 

— Voyage in a balli , 304. 

— Slanderous accusation against, 328. 

— Work in the South, 328 

— Death of, 848. 
Garibaldi at Bordeaux, 386, 

— His influence at Bordeaux, 396 

— And his famous " Thousand," 400. 
Garnier- Pages, 167 

GarRICK at Hampton Court, 540 
Gasparin, M. Agenor de, at Belleville, 174. 
Gate of the Sun, The (Puerta del Sol), 122. 
Genoa, Duke of, Princt* of the House of Savoy, 58. 
Germersheim, On the road to, 101 

— Description of, 196. 
George II., 564. 



George III., and his Court at Windsor, 554. 
German Army, The, in ls7i>, 1st;. 

— — The, in the North, 366. 

— Military discipline, 218, 

— < Hitposts, how fortified, 348. 

— Soldiers in Paris, 426. 

Germany, The Passion Play in, 795. 

— Its position in Europe, sl7. 

— Industrial triumph of, 817. 

— In Africa, sis. 

Girard, Mr., account "f the execution of Archbishop 

Darboy, 496. 
Girardin, M. Emile de, 511. 
Glenn, Mr., in Paris during the Commune, 516, 
Gladstone, W. E-, and the Irish question, 652 

— And Lord Beaconsheld's policy of empire and 1'berty, 

663. 

— His career, 664. 

— As a statesman, t.iiit'.. 

— In and out of Parliament, 668. 

— Personal description of, 668. 

— On the Turkish government, 673, 

— Ministry, The, and the creation of peers, 581. 
Glasgow, its commerce and its antiquities, 643. 

— The water supply of, 648. 

Goblet, M . at the obsequies of V. Hugo, 840. 
Gonhsse. The guard at, 347, 
t iOLDS< HMIDT, .Mr., 6*27. 

i '•• ilesc o, Constantme, 7;'.7. 

Gordon, C. G., General, as Governor-General of the 
Soudan, 824-826. 

— And King Leopold, 826, 

— In Khartoum, Sl'7. 

— Despatches to Sir F. Baring, 828, 830. 

— Extracts from diary, sl'u. 

— AndZebehr Pasha, 830. 

— Extracts from letters of, B32, 

— Death of, 834. 

— Relief expedition, The, 830. 

Gorny Studfn, The Russian emperor at, 7SO-2. 
t lORTSi HAKOFF, Prince, 732. 

— At the Berlin Congress, 786. 

Government of National Defense, Proclamation of, 367. 

— — — Proclamation of, at the end of the siege of Pans, 

375. 
GoORKO, < ieneral, expedition of. into the Balkans, 78U-4. 
Graham, General, in Egypt, 828, 
GRAMONT, Duke- de, 167. 
Ckam' Docks of Paris, The, in flames, 400. 
CiRAVBF.ND, Historical souvenirs of, 534, 
Great Commercial Highway, The, 531, 
Great Funerals, 439. 
Grebzi, The village of, 685. 

— The rebel army in, 677. 
Greeks in Roumania, 740. 

— In Tirnova, 761 
Greelev, Horace, 50. 
Greenhithf, 534 
Greenwich, 533. 

— Historic stems in. 534, 

— Hospital. 534 
Gresham, Sir Thomas, 615. 

Grew, M. Jules, President of the Assembly at Bordeaux, 

388. 
Grosvenor Gallery, The, 627. 

— House, 631. 



INDEX. 



855 



Grotto of Hercules, 116. 
Grousset, M.Pascal, and the Commune, 461. 
— Sentence and escape of, 518. 
Grove, Sir George, 627. 
Guildhall, 606. 
Guillotines, Burning of the, 438. 



H 

Halle, Charles, in London, 627. 
Hamilton, Duke of, 571. 
Hammersmith, Historical events in, 542. 
Hampton Court, its history, 549. 

The tapestries of, 550. 

Hangerli, Constantine, Assassination of, 728. 

Hapsburgs, The, 96. 

Hartington, The Marquis of, 593. 

Hastings, 529. 

Hatton, on the future of Birmingham, 640. 

Henrv II. before Metz, 318. 

Henry III. and the Protestant Montbrun, 812. 

Herzegovina, a day with a voivoda, 677. 

— History of the insurrection in, 1875, 669. 

— Among the rocks of, 675. 

— Journey from Ragusa to, 676. 

— Tomo, the guide, 680. 

— Peko Pavlovic, 683. 

— Council of war, 686. 
Herzei.ovinan Warriors, 685. 
Holland, Charles, at Chiswick, 543. 
Horse-racing, Scenes at Epsom, 623. 

Famous Jockeys, 624. 

The Ascot and the Oak, 626. 

Hotel des Invalides, Invasion of, 425. 
Hotel de Ville, The procession to the, 234. 

Communists in, 428. 

During the Commune, 448. 

— — The burning of, 486, 500. 
Ruins of, 504. 

House of Commons, Aristocratic element in, 570. 

The Speaker, 577. 

The Irish members in the, 587. 

The procedure in, 583. 

A conscientious member, 583. 

■ The Treasury Whip ; Parliamentary forms, 585. 

Oddities of, 586. 

English representation in, 587. 

Anomalies of English representation, 687, 

Reform of, and the redistribution bill, 588. 

House of Lords, The throne, 576. 

The Lord Chancellor, 577. 

The procedure in the, 578. 

Additions since 1859. 582. 

Offices disposed of by, 595. 

Hugo, Charles, Funeral of, 427. 

— Victor, and the Imperialist cause, 44. 

— — In Spain, 55. 

Return from exile, 261. 

— — Speech in the Bordeaux Assembly, 393. 

— — And the Vendome Column, 468. 
On the death of Captain Harvey, 532. 

— — And the English Channel, 631. 

Protest against capital punishment, 836. 

Religion of, 837. 

Verses of, on Napoleon TIL ; Death of, 836. 



Hugo, Victor, Obsequies of, 839. 

— — -A retrospection, s4k, 
What he preached, 849. 

Humbert, King, and Queen Margherita, 414. 
Hungarian Crown, The chapel of the, 708. 
Hungary, Craiova, 711. 

— Features of, 709. 

— Orsova, 704-9. 

— Mehadia, 709. 

— The Tsiganes, 710. 

— The dogs of Orsova, 710. 
Hyde Park, scenes in, 631. 



Ignatieff, General, 732. 

Industrial Exhibition in Milan and Turin, 404. 

Inquisition, The, 130. 

Institution of the Holy Cross, The, 452. 

International Association, The, 843. 

Of workingmen, The objects of, 51. 

Letter of, 175. 

— Boat-race at Putney, 540, 542. 
Internationale, The Origin of, 52. 

— Programme of, 52-53. 

— Influence of, in Spain, 55. 

— Movement of, in 1870, 174. 
Invisible Court, The, of England, 568-569. 
Ireland, The Land League, 652. 

— The Coercion Act, 652. 

— The Crimes Bill, 654. 

— The land agitation in, 651. 

— Crimes in, 654. 

— "The Invincibles," 654. 

— A Land League mass meeting, 656. 

— The wild and savage peasantry of, 657. 

— Dublin Castle, 658. 

— Trinity College, 659. 

— St. Patrick's Cathedral, 659. 

— Phcenix Park, 660. 

— Queenstown harbor, 660, 662. 
Irving Henry, 629. 

Irun to Burgos, Description of journey from, 60. 

Isabel, Queen, 56, 94. 

Italian Army and Navy, The, 406. 

— War-ships, 407. 
Italy, and France, 148. 

— Upgrowth of her nationality, 399. 

— Alliance of Prussia and, 097. 

— From Julius II. to Pius VI. , 398. 

— And Prussia, Campaign of, 400. 

— Beggars in, 404. 

— The civil engineer in, 404. 

— Railways in, 404. 

— Painting in, 40.".. 

— Agricultural progress in, I 1 5-6. 

— Education in, 400. 

— The struggle between Church and State, 407. 

— * ivil list of the king of, 414. 

— Prophecies of the Catholics in, 4i"4. 



Jacobins, The, at the funeral of Victor Hugo, 840. 
Jageks, The, at Montretowt, 366 



85(3 



INDEX. 



Jassy, Impressions of, 741. 

— The Russians in; "The Three Hierarchs," 742, 

— Saint Nicholas, 742, 

Jai mont Quarries, Story of the, 214. 

Jehome, King, ;'•". 

Jesui es, The expulsion of, from Spain, 57. 

Joan of Arc, 31. 

Ji ihn 1 1 , King, 121, 

Johnson, Dr., house in Fleet street, oil). 

Jourde, 4:;:; 



K 

Kaisfrslautern, Adventures in, 192, 

KARA-I rEORGE, 70S 

Karl, Prince Friedrich, Field equipage of, 187. 

On the road to Metz, 203. 

In front of Metz, 310 

Kean, Edmund, 548. 

Keller, M., at the Bordeaux Assembly, 388. 

Kehl, German batteries at, 279. 

— Destruction of, 281. 
Kensington Gardens, 559. 

— Palace, An episode of, 558. 
Kew, and Kew < lardens, 545. 
Kezanlik, Turks and Bulgarians in, 772. 

— Tradition <>f, 77:; 
Knk.ht of La Mancha, 114. 



La Roquettb, Visit to the prison of, 160. 

— — Prison, Executions in, 4!>7 

La Vii lette, The Communists in, 499. 
LaboIk h&re, Mr. , r>94. 

— And Mr Bradlaugh, 602. 
Lambe i ii, 539, 

Land Tax, The, of Creat Britain, 596, 
Landau, A visit t<., 190, 

Lang lois, of Paris, Screams f>>r vengeance, 392. 
Landwehrsmen, The, in Versailles, 354. 
Landsdowne, Marquis of, and the Cordon Relief Expedi- 
tion, 831. 
Law Students in England, 611. 
Laws. i-;, Sir Wilfred, 623 
Le Bceuf, Marshal, Failure of plan of, 181, 
l.i' Bourget, Desperate battles at, 323. 
Le < om ir, ' General, Assassination of, 428. 
Le Franc, M., at the Bordeaux Assembly, 391. 
I -i-i. i- ■ i >. < >t Saragossa, >* 

— I if the Church of Mih.nl Voda, 728. 

— Of the Kapa, 695 

I .i:..! ■.! is, of Bucharest, 720. 

Leigh ri in, Sii Fredei U k, 626 

Leo XIII , Personal appearance and character of, 416. 

Daily Life of, 416-421. 

Founds an academy, 423 

Leopoi o, Prim e, and the Spanish throne, 166. 

— < >f Hohenzollern, 365 
Levallois, during the revolution, 459. 
Liverpool, Wealth and poverty "I, 662, 
Livron, ( it v i>£, 82. 

Livry, Industry '>f the soldiers in, 349. 
Ljubi im \in . Voivi ida, 678, 
Li.' >\ d*s, 616. 



Loire Army, The defeat of, 345. 
Lombards', Napoleon III. in, '■'•'.»*■. 
London and Paris Compared, 519, 
Mutual respect between, 526. 

— Drinking customs in, 525, 

— The port of, 537 

— The docks and their revenue ; Bridge, 538. 

— Somerset House, 539, 

— Irishmen in, os7 

— Municipal reform, 589. 

— The land owners of, 590. 

— Public-houses in, 599, 

— The Hall of Science, 600. 

— The Metropolitan Tabernacle, 599. 

— The Lord Mayor, 604-607. 

— The Recorder; The Mansion House, 60S, 

— Guildhall, 606, 

— Lord Mayor's Day in ; The City Companies, 606. 

— City man, The ; Temple Bar and Memorial, 609. 

— Fleet street and its historical memories, 610. 

— Lincoln's Inn, 610. 

— St. Paul's ; Paternoster Row, 612. 

— Lombard street, 613. 

— Americans in, 614. 

— The Royal Kxchange, 615. 

— The City of; Bank of England, 616. 

— Christ's Hospital, 616. ' 

— The Charter House ; " The Times," 617. 

— The smoke and dirt of, 619. 

— The Royal Academy, 626. 

— The Philharmonic Society, 627. 

— Seasons, The, 620, 629. 

— Theatre, The ; Rotten Row, 630. 

— Some noble houses in, 631. 

— The clubs of, 633. 

— The Strand, 6;t5. 

— Book publishers, 612. 
Longchamps, The C.erman parade on, 425. 
Li mi-. 1 , of Bavai ia, 792. 

Louis II., of Bavaria, 793. 

Louis XII , Chateau of, at Maisons Lafntte, 333. 

Lot i ■ XIV , 190. 

— Palace of, at Versailles, 358. 
L<>wi-:i,l, James Russell, 98. 
Luxembourg Affair, The, 153. 

— Panic, The, 29. 

— Palace, The, 494. 



M 

MacC'fahan', Mr., in Bulgaria, 672. 

— Account of the attack on Plevna, 7S0. 
M.m Mahon, Marshal, Character of, Is4. 

— At Woerth; Defeal of, 199 

— In action, 201, 

— At Chalons, 205. 

— Telegr.iin of, 211 

— I hsaster lo, 246 

— And the Republic, 846. 
Madrid, First impressions of, 64. 

— And its gloom, 92. 

— Bull-fighting in, 101. 

— Museum of Painting in, 111. 

— Noted tapestries in ; Public buildings of, 112 



INDEX. 



857 



Magnan, Marshal, 35. 

Magnet, Citizen, 441). 

" Maiden's Tower," The, 31. 

Maison aux Piliers, 505. 

Maison de la Revolution, The, 142. 

Malesherbes Fight, The, 481. 

Mano Negra, The society of the, 125. 

Marlborough House, 562. 

Marseillaise Journal, The, 1.3.1. 

Marseilles, Wealth and resources of, 83. 

— Plague of, 1720-21, 84. 
Marx, Karl, 52. 

Matador, The (bull killer), 107. 

Mathilde, Princess, and marriage of Napoleon III., 37. 

— Retreat of, at St. Gratien, 337. 
Maupas, M. de, 45. 
Maximilian, Execution of, 29. 
Mayence, Military scenes in, 186. 
Mazas Prison, 497. 

Mazzini and the Italian war of Independence, 398. 

— Funeral of, 412. 

— Letter of, on the Insurrection, 512. 
Mediterranean, Journey to the, 67. 
Megy, General, at the burning of Paris, 492. 
Merimee, M-., and M. Thiers, 223. 
Metropolitan Church, The (Seville), 128. 
Metropolitan Tabernacle, The, 599. 
Metternich, Princess de, 37. 

— Prince de, and the Empress Eugenie, 236. 
Metz, in 1870, 169. 

— Great battles in front of, and around, 203-213. 

— Condition of the French troops in, 205. 

— Bazaine's retreat upon, 207. 

— Road to, 209; Environs and history of, 308-310. 

— German losses outside, 311. 

— Diversions of German soldiers during the siege of, 312. 

— Within and without during the siege, 313. 

— Poisoning the wells around, 314. 

— Surrender of, 317; Events after the surrender of, 318. 
Mexico, End of the French expedition in, 28. 
Mezquita, The mosque of the, 125. 

Michel, General, 170. 

" Midi " (Southern France), 82. 

Midhat Pasha, as Governor of Bulgaria, 763. 

Milan, Prince, 672-3. 

Millais, John, 626; In Scotland, 649. 

Milliere, Execution of, 516. 

Milton, John, and the origin of Paradise Lost, 798. 

Ministry of Finance, The burning uf, 491. 

Miot, M.,497. 

Mirabeau, Speech of, 505. 

Mirsky, Prince, 769. 

Moltke, Von, and the German armies, 178. 

— Journeys before the war, 182; And De Wimpffen, 253. 

— Saves his papers, 306; In Versailles, 330, 365. 
Mont Avron, 360. 

Mont Cenis Tunnel, The, 403. 
Mont Valerien, Story of, 332 
Montenegrin, Manners and customs of the, 692. 
Montenegrins, A type of the, 688, 692. 

— The Moslems, 691. 

Montenegro, History and legend of, 670-1 ; The army 
of, 693; Costumes in, 694; Legend of the Kapa, 
695; Peter IL, Danilo, 695; Nicholas L, 696-7 ; Its 
situation, 689; Its boundaries, 690; The conscript 
fathers, 700 ; The monastery of Ostrog, 700. 



Montijo, Mdlle. Eugenie de, 32; And Napoleon III., 33. 
Montmartre, 426; The defense of, 482. 
Montmedy, Bravery of a French officer at, 341, 
Montmorency, The town of, 335. 
Montpensier, Duke de, 130. 
Montretout, The assault at, 30k-:;6'.i 
Moorish Victories over the Goths, Legend of the, 115. 
Mortlake, Historical events in, 544. 
Moselle, Fort, 308. 
Mount St. Nicholas, 769. 
Munich, The city and people of, 792. 
— The museums and statue of, 793. 
Murillo, 130. 

Museum of Painting, in Strasbourg, Destruction of , 284. 
Museum of the Prado, in Madrid, The, 111. 
Music, in London, 627. 



N 

Nancy, comical incident in ; Story of the capture of, 291. 

Napias-Piquet, and the burning of important-papers, 506. 

Napier, Lord, 96. 

NAPLES„The portoj , 403 ; Railways in, 404. 

Napoleon, Prince, and Rachel, 38. 

Napoleon, Prince Louis, as President of the French Re- 
public, 40. 

Napolbon III. and his Court, 22 ; Marriage of , 34 ; Pro- 
claimed Emperor, 48; Futile efforts for reform, 49; 
And his ministers, 138; Speeches of, 142; Senate 
of, 149; And the King of Prussia, 151 ; Intrigue of, 
152 ; Departure for the war, 174 ; At Saarbruck, 204 ; 
Taken prisoner, 222; At Sedan, 245; At home, 235. 
Surrender of, 250; Departure from Sedan, 254; 
Journey of, through Belgium, 258; A prisoner at 
Wilhelmshohe, 258; Library of, 262; And the alli- 
ance of Italy with Prussia, 397; Policy in Italy, 398; 
Espouses the cause of Piedmont, 399; And Pius 
IX., 400; Death of, 847. 

Napoleon's Column, 527. 

National Assembly, The, and the Imperialists, 42. 

National Guard, The, at Montretout, 370 ; Discipline of, 
426 : And the Communists, 426. 

National Guard Mobile, The, 171; Origin of, 227; 
After the surrender of Strasbourg, 2*7. 

Neuilly, Fighting on the road to, 441. 

— Thrilling tales of the destruction at, 451. 
Neutral Zone, The, 377. 

Nby, Count Edgar, 36. 
Niamtzo, The monasteries of, 746. 
Nice, ceded to the French, 399. 
Nicholas, Grand Duke, Character of, 754. 

— Entry into Tirnova, 760. 
Nicholas L, Prince, 697. 

Niel, Marshal, Reform law of, 171. 

Night of fires, The. 4*r. 

Noir, Victor, Assassination of, 133. 

North Sf_a Coast, The, 528 

Northumberland, Duke of, 571. 

Notes from the diary of a French writer, 514-515. 



o 

Ober-Ammergau, The Passion Play in, 796. 
Old London, 520. 



858 



INDEX. 



Ollivier, Emile, and the Imperialists, 24, 113. 

— Declaration of, 166. 

— Conversation with a political friend, 178. 

— Defeat of ministry of, 220. 
Okolowicz, The brothel . U57 
Ombla, Pictures in, 676. 
Omnibuses in Madrid, 91. 

( Orders 1 >ay in Versailles, 365, 
Orleans Exiles, The, and their English home, 549. 
Orsova, Scenery in, 704 ; Railways in, 709. 
Osman Pasha, at Loftscha, 765; At Plevna, 782. 
Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, Hospital of, 452. 
" Our Lady of the Pillar," Legend of, 05. 



Painters and Painting in Italy. 4(15. 

Painting, Museum of, in Madrid, 111. 

I' \ i \. e of 1 1 ■■ i v E, The burning of, 507. 

Palais Boi rbon, Description of, 142 ; Invasions of, 143, 

Palais de l'Industrie, 447. 

Palais Royal, Heart-rending scenes around, 491, 

Palais Royal Company, The, 39 

Palatinate, Troops in the, 190. 

Palikao, General, Count de, Ministry of, 220. 

— Project of, 230 

Palmerston, Lady, Receptions of, 632. 

— Lord, at Compiegne, 37. 

Pantheon, The, 414 ; Of the Spanish kings, 62. 
Papal Nuncio, 95. 

Paradol, M., in the United Males, 157; Suicide of, 158. 
Paris, Exposition of 1867, The, 23, 29. 

— Journey from Madrid to, 81. 

— Palate of Industry in, 101. 

— During the war, 218; Return of regiments to, 229, 

— Preparations foi the siege of, 262; The sieges of, 263. 

— Prussian prisoners in, 265; The forts round, 300. 

— Terms of the armistice, 275. 

— Details of the preparation for the defense of, 301. 

— Journey around, during the siege, 332. 

— Bombardment of, 359 ; End of the siege of, 375. 

— Destruction of public institutions in, 361. 

— Personal reminiscences of the close of the siege of,376. 

— England's aid to, after the siege, 377. 

— Triumphal entry into, 125. 

— Outbreak of the Commune, 426. 

— Second bombardment of, 443, 

— Entry of regular troops into, 47*1; Executions in, 400. 

— The burning of, 190; I he seven days fight in, 499-511. 

— Communist proc ission in, 500. 

— The destruction in, during the Commune, 515. 

— And London compared, 519 526 

— Of to-day, 520 ; lnafog,624; Drinking customs in, 525. 

— The Passion Play in, 797. 

— The Pantheon, the entombment of Victor Hugo in, 839. 

— The army of, at the obsequies of Victor Hugo, 841. 
Paris Journals during the Commune, "Paris Free, 1 ' 

"Commune," 4)15 ; " Estafette," " Grelot," " Pere 

I hjchene," 464. 
Parkington, Sir John, 581. 
Parliament Building, The, 572-571".. 
Parnell, Mr., in the House of Commons, 586. 

— In Ireland, 652; Imprisonment of, 653 
Passion Play, The, at Ober-Ammergau, 798-811, 

Joseph Maier, 800, 802; Jacob Hett, 801. 



Passion Play, Representation of :— 

Part I.— The fall of man, 799; Christ in the Temple, 
800; the Sanhedrim scene, 802, 805; the Lord's 
Supper, 804; the betrayal, 805 ; the scene in Geth- 
semane, 806. 
Part II.— The scene before Annas, 807; Peter's de- 
nial, 808; Suicide of Judas, 808; Christ before 
Pilate, 809; the bearing of the Cross to Golgotha, 
and the Crucifixion, 810. 

Pavia, I leneral, 70. 

Peabody, George, in London, 532. 

Peko Pavlovic and Ljubibratic, 684. 

Pensions in England, Ancient and hereditary, 566-568. 

Pbre Jean, his opinion of Napoleon III , 295. 
The story of, 295. 

Pere la Chaise, Cemetery of, 496; Massacre in, 508. 

Perez, A-lonzo, l)eath of, 121, 

Pest, 815. 

Peter II , 695. 

Peter's Pence, 422. 

Petion, Mayor, of Paris, 135. 

Petit Journal of Paris, 139. 

IV: i r< ileuses, The, 487. 

Pfalz, Journey into the, 188. 

Philip II., the terrible, 63. 

Pictures of the Commune, 444. 

— Old Masters, The, 111-112. 
Piedmont, The Austrians in, 399. 
Pietri, Imperial Prefect of Police, 226. 

Pius IX , Sketch of his life ; Ancestors of, 407. 

And Victor Emmanuel, 408-411. 

Pizarro, 1"'_'. 

Place Stanislaus, Scenes in the, 290. 

— D'Armes, The parades on the, 329. 

— Vendome, Fusillade of the, 430- Regulars in the, 487. 

— De la Bastille, 499. 

— De la Concorde, Exciting scenes on the, 229; At- 

tack on the, 480. 

— De l'Opera, The barricade on the, 488. 

— I >i- i a Roquette, Scenes on the, 438, 

— Du Carrousel, 140. 
Plaza de Toros, The, 102. 
" Plebiscite, The," 46. 

Plevna, and its influence on the Russian campaign, 779. 

— The fall of, 7s:; 
Plymouth, The forts at, 528. 
Poets, Homes and haunts of, 642. 
Pomeranians, The, at the siege of Met/, 316. 
!'. ■-. r n ical Zouaves., The, 401, 

Pope, at Twickenham, 549. 

Popes, The. and the Vatican, 417. 

Por m gal and the result of the Congo Congress, 842, 

Pouyer-Quertiek, M.,and Bismarck, 269. 

Prado Museum, The, 112. 

Prim, General, and Marshal Serrano, 57. 

— Suppresses telegrams, fit". ; Death of, !*4. 

— And Bismarck, 165. 
Prince Consort at Windsor, 554. 

— ( Ieori .k of Saxony, 364. 

— Imperial, Short career and death of, 849. 

— Of Wales, The title of. 562 

Princes of Wales, The, since Edward II. 562 
Printing Press of the " Times," The, i>17 
Provencal Language, The, 84. 

Prussia, The Crown Prince of, at St. CI 1, 305; In Ver- 
sailles, 330. 



INDEX. 



Kf,'.» 



Prussian Soldier in 1870, Uniform of, 187. 
— Spy, Capture of, 221. 
Puerta del Sol, The, 92 

Putney, Aquatic sports in, 540 ; Historical events in, 541. 
Pyat, F<51ix, 303. 



Q 

Quaint Old Spanish City, A, G5. 
Queen of the Adriatic, The, 400. 
Queue-en-Brie, Effect of the war in, 350. 
Quirinal Palace, The, 414 
Quinet, Edgar, at Belleville, 174. 
— Speech at the Bordeaux Assembly, 392. 



R 

Race for the Rhine, The, 182. 

Rachel and Prince Napoleon, 3k. 

Radetzky, General, 757. 

Ranc and the Communists, 437. 

Red Republic, The, 428. 

Regiment of the " Guides," The, 151. 

Regnault, Death of, 371. 

Regnier and Bazaine, 319 

Reign of Terror, The, 45-46. 

Rennie, Sir John, 530. 

Republic in Europe, Advance of the, 849. 

Republicanism in Europe, 845; In Spain, 9*. 

Revolution, The, of 1851, 44-48. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 548. 

Rezonville, Battle at, 211. 

Rhine, The, Military scenes on, 186; Bed of, 196. 

Richmond, The " Star and Garter " Hotel ; Gladstone at, 

546; Its romance, 540; Louis Philippe at, 548; 

Hill, 547; Lodge, 647; Theatre, 54s. 
Rigault, Raoul, Project of, 473; Death of, 515. 
Riviera, Francis de la, 70. 
Rochefort, Henri, and the " Figaro," 50. 

— Elected deputy, 132; Meetings of, 158. 

— And his yellow gloves, 140. 

— Arrest of, 162; Release from prison, 240. 

— Resignation of, 327 ; Sentence and escape of, 517. 
Rome, Occupation of, by the Italians, 407. 

— Nobility of, and the Vatican, 421. 
Romero de Ronda, Francisco, 102. 
Rose Culture in Bulgaria, 773. 
Rossel, sketch of his career, 456. 

— Characterization of the Commune nf, 513. 
Rothan, M., on Prince Bismarck, 177 ; And the Duke de 

Gramont,179; Interview with Marshal LeBceuf,180. 
Rouher, M., " Vice-Emperor," 50; As a speaker, 143. 

— Extracts from speecli of, 152 
Roumania, A khan in; The dogs of, 710. 

— Primitive life of the villagers, 717 ; Education in, 719. 

— French influence in, 721, 725; Jews in, 721. 

— The Dimbovitza, 722 ; Crime in, 724. 

— The press in, 729. 

— The Garden of Herestreu ; Gypsy music in, 730 

— Climate of, 732. 

— Funeral in ; Sketch of the history of, 734. 

— The Turkish in ; Queen Elizabeth, 736. 

— King Charles, 735-737. 

— Cotroceni ; Tirgoviste ; Mirzea, 737. 



Roumania, The Language of, 739 ; Greeks in, 740. 

— Agriculture in ; Impressions of Jassy, 741. 

— Bessarabia, 743; Ploiesd and GalaU, 744. 

— The towns of, 745; The monasteries of, 74*;. 

— And the treaty of San Stefano, 786. 

— Streets and street types in, 724. 

— Army and navy of, 725-726; Chinches of, 727-72*. 
Roumanian Church, The, 727; Houses, 733. 
Roumanians, 779; Superstitions of, 722 ; The early, 739. 
Royal Academy, The, 626. 

— ■ Wedding, in Spain, 93. 
Rue de la Paix, The rebels in the, 430. 

— De la Sourdieke, Meetings in the, 147. 

— Rapp, The Explosion on the, 473. 

— Royale, The Burning of the, 480. 

— St. Jacques, Invasion of, 466. 
Russia, Nihilism in, sis 

— The Emperor of, in the field, 755. 

— Emperor of, in the Kazan Cathedral, 783. 
Russian Army, The manners of the officers of, 753. 

— Soldiers, on the march, 756; Cossacks, 758-759. 
Russians in Servia, 673. 

— The, in Bulgaria; The singing tumps, 749 
Russo-Turkish War, Sistova, 758; Rustchuk, 765; 

Prince Tserteleff, 769; The Balkans, 768; Shipka 
Pass, 769; The massacre in Eski Zaghra, 774; At 
Selvi, 775; The horrors of Plevna, 779; Shipka 
Pass, Mutilation of the Russian wounded in, 771 ; 
Statistics of the forces in, 782; England intervenes, 
784. 
Rustchuk, The Turks in, 765. 



SaarbrUck Affair, The, 204. 

Sacristan of Notre Dame, The, and the Communists, 

445, 
Sadowa, Victory of Prussians at, 152. 
Sainte Adresse, The heights of, 528. 
St. Catherine's Docks, 538. 
St. Cloud, Burning of the palace of, 305 

Journey through the park at, 579. 

Scenes in, after the war, 379; The palace at, 380. 

Sainte-Croix, Chinch of, 332 

St. Cyr, The library of, 57 1. 

St. Denis, The bombardment of, 373; Prussians in, 431. 

St. Eugenie's Day, 37. 

Saint Gratien, Visit to, 337. 

St. Hilaire, M. Barthelemy, 146. 

St. James's Palacf, History of, 558. 

St. Paul's, and its neighborhood, 612. 

St. Privat, Battle at, 212, 

St. Stephen's Cathedral (Metz), 309. 

St. Thomas Aquinas, 425. 

St. Vicente, 80. 

Salisbury, Lord, 592 ; Journey to Constantinople, 673. 

Salvation Army, The, 67s. 

Samuel, Captain, Telegram of, 182. 

San Juan, Church of, 76. 

San Juan de los Reyes, Church of, 122. 

San Sebastian, Biarritz to, 59. 

San Stefano, Signing of the treaty of, 785. 

Sandringham, r>*\~,. 

Santiago Chapel, 121. 

Saragossa, Quaint scenes in, 64; Rebellion in, 66. 



860 



INDEX. 



Sarcey, M. F., on the retreat from Chatillon, 266. 
Sartrouvtelbj Scenes in, '.;".4 
Schneider, M., and the strikes, 174. 

— In the Corps Legislatif, 219; Narrow escape of, 232. 
-• ''ii AND, Agriculture in ; Cities in, 643. 

— The old Gothic cathedral, 644; St. Mary's cathedra!, 

64.".; Holyrood Abbey, 646 

— The Highlands, 648. 

— At Ardrishaig, 649; At Stirling, 650. 

— And Ireland, 650. 
Scott, Sir Walter. 649. 

Second Empire, The, in Parts, in 1867, 21 ; Decline of, 
24; Origin of, 40; History of, 4«; Senate of, 148; 
Fall of, 224 
Sedan, The retreat to, 243 ; Capitulation of, 249 

* Terms of the surrender of, 255 
Seafikld, Karl of, 571. 
Sefton, Karl of, 571. 
Seine, The gun-boats on, 447. 
Serrano, Marshal, 57. 

Servia and its rulers, 671 ; Turkish atrocities in, 672. 
Servian Smugglers, 706. 
Servians and Bulgarians, 70S. 
Seville, Past and present, 127, 128, 
Shakesteare House, The ; Festival, in 1870, 630, 
Sheffield, Lord, Earl of Mulgrave, "12 
Sheridan, General, in Paris, 430, 
Simnitza, Scenes in, 748. 
Simon, Jules, Extract from speech of, 143. 

— Parliamentary reputation of, 146. 
Sims, ( leorge, 620. 

Sind, Christian, 104. 
Sistine Chapel, The, 417. 
Sistova,750; General 1 Iragimiroft at, 758, 
Skobeleff, The elder, 754, 

— General, at Plevna. 7sl ; Death of, 848. 
Slavs, The, 763, 790 

Socialism in France, Appearance of, 53; In Germany, 818. 

Society of the Mano Negra, 125. 

Soudan and the Soudanese, 824, 

Spain, The Revolution in. 56 ; The Republic in, 57 ; Roy- 
al wedding in, 03 ; Present condition of, 07 ; National 
sport of, 102; Republicanism in, 98, 846. 

Spanish Bish< >p, A, 87. 

— Politics since 1869, 78; Cloak, The, 113; Beggars, 116. 
Speyer, Crown Prince of Prussia at, 188. 

SPURGEON, Mr , in his Tabernacle, 5'JN. 

Stafford House, 631. 

Stanley, H. M. . on the i !ongo * longress, 842 
Sthinmetz, General, 189; Recalled from active service, 310. 
Strand, The, a historic avenue, 635. 

S I RASBI >UPG, in 1870, 170. 

— Preparations for an assault upon, 27*. 

— Bombardment of; Cathedral, Famous tower of; As 

a military fort, 280. 

— As built by Vauban, 1682-85,281 ; Public Library, 284. 

— Expulsion of the Germans from, 282; In flames, 283, 

— Bishop of, and the chief of the Prussian staff, 285. 

— Perilous journey of the Prefi ct of ; Surrender of, 287. 

— Journey through, after the bombardment, 289 

— Mayor of, approaching death of, 391 ; Death of, 395. 
Street Fighting, in Spain, 71 ; As a science, 478. 

sn- ^ at.' r, ( olonel, in Egypt, 828, 832. 

— General Herbert, 832 
Stratford-on-Avon, 6:;!i 
Suez Canal, The, 821. 



Suleiman Pacha and Radetzky, 770. 

At Eski Zaghra, 773, 765. 

Defeat of, 7k4. 

Sultan of Turkey, The, in Pans, 26, 

Sunday, in London and Pans, 522 

Sutherland, Duke of, 571 ; At Stafford House, 631. 



Tadema, Alma, 626. 
Tann, General Von der, at Sedan, 257. 
Tapestries, Noted, 112. 
Tattersall's, 623. 

Temple Neuf, The, Destruction of, 284. 
Terriss, Mr., 630. 
Terry, Ellen, 629. 

Thames, The, from Woolwich Arsenal to Windsor Castle, 
533-551 ; A grand sight on, 533. 

— Embankment, The, 539. 
Theatre, The origin of, 797. 
The-Atre Francais, The, 39. 
Theatre of the Passion Play, The, 796. 

— Of the Porte St. Martin, Burning of, 500. 
Thiers, Louis Adolphe, in the Corps Legistalif, 143. 

— And his attitude towards the Second Empire, 144. 

— And M. Rouher, 152. 

— Protest of, 168. 

— Joins the Committee of Defense, 221, 

— And M. Jerome David, 222. 

— Declines to head the government, 223; Project of, 230. 

— And the Government of National Defense, 325. 

— Interview with Bismarck, 325 ; At Versailles, 327. 

— And the Bordeaux Assembly, 388. 

— Elected deputy and forms a Cabinet, 389. 

— Speech against the Bonapartists, 393. 

— Speech on the Roman question, 397. 

— And the Communists, 432. 

— Vigorous action of, at Versailles, 434. 

— Mansion of, unroofed, 465. 

— In Paris during the conflagration, 404. 

— Concessions of, 512; Funeral of, 134, 847. 
Thiers, Madame, in the loge de la Presidence, 390. 
Thomas, General, Assassination <if, 428. 
Tirnova, Triumphal entry of the Russians into, 759. 

— Description of a house in, 761. 

Tobacco, Use of , in the Russian and Prussian armies, 757. 

Tocsin, The. in Paris, 476. 

Todleben, General, outside Plevna, 782. 

Toledo, Visit to the city of, 113 

— The military school of. 117 ; Cathedral of, 120. 
Tortosa, 87. 

Trafalgar Square, 601. 

Tri h ami-' >, Tin- batteries of, 447. 

Tkochi', < teneral, preparing for the siege of Paris, 263. 

— At i hampigny, 345. 
Trajan. The footprints of, 704. 
Trojan, « 'onvent of, 771. 
Troppmann, Execution of, 159. 
Trouvii t e, 528 

Tsettinje, The village of, 698; The Turk's Tower, 699. 

Tuileries, Procession to the, -'.'A. 

Turkey, L'zarino fort, 680; And the Montenegrins, 690. 

— Ada-Ra!e fort, 702. 



INDEX. 



861 



Turkish Empire of to-day, The, 790 ; Time, 767. 
Twickenham, Walpole al ; Due d' Aumale at, 548. 
— Historical event in; Louis Philippe at, 549. 



U 

Uhrich, General, in Strasbourg, 280, 
United States, Castelar and the, 98. 
University Boat-race, The, 541. 
Unredeemed Italy, 4-4. 



Vachbrot, M., 394. 
Vaisset, Execution of, 507. 
Valencia, Journey to, 67. 

— Bombardment of, 68 ; The nine days* fight in, 72-76. 

— The Passion Play in, 80. 

— Market-place of, 88; Cathedral, 89. 
Valencian Credit Institution as a fortress, 70. 

— Republicans, Costume of, 70. 
Valles, M. Jules, Statement of, 492. 
Vatican, Palace and Museums of the, 416. 

— The Pope at the, 416; The Loggie, 417. 

— And the Quirinal ; Programme of the, 423. 
Yi i asquez, Isidoro, 93; Pictures of, 111. 
Vendome Column, The, Description and fall of, 468. 
Venice, Industrial arts in, 41).".. 

Vekmav, Jehan Cornelius, 111'. 
Vermorel and the Communists, 437. 
Versaillais and the Revolutionists in Paris, 479. 
Versailles, Capitulation of, 268. 

— Journey from Epernay to, 294. 

— The Prussians in, 298. 

— Panics in, during the siege of Paris, 306, 370. 

— Hotel des Reservoirs, 331. 

— Rue Neuve, 331. 

— Royal interview in, 352; Conspiracy in, 353. 

— Christmas in, 354 ; Scenes on the canal in, 355. 

— New Year's Day at head-quarters, 357. 

— Scene in the palace at, 359. 

— The Coronation of King William, 363. 

— The Royalists in, 444, 

— Troops, The, and the insurgents, 440. 
Vesuvius, 21. 
"Vice-Emperor," M. Rouher, 50. 

Victor Emmanuel, King, entry in Rome, 398. 

At the Quirinal, 410. 

Death, and personal traits of. 412, 

Effect of Journeys to Vienna and Berlin, 412. 

Sons <if, 414; And the Archbishop Pecci, 415. 

Victoria, Queen, Private life of, 554. 

— Income of, 559; Landed property of, 560. 

— Grandchildren of, 565; Anniversary of birth of, 622. 

— Household expenses of, 567 ; In Scotland, 650, 

Vn ,na, The financial crash in; The famous Ring, 812. 

— The opera in, 815 

Vie rzonese, The, and the invaders, 385. 
Ville d'Avray, in Peace and War, 379. 



Villemessant, M. de, 139. 
Villiers, Desperate fighting at, 342. 

— And vicinity after the battle, 346. 

Vinoy, General, attack on the Chateau d'Eau, 501, 507. 

— Before Pere la Chaise, 508 
Volcanic Shimmer, The, 21. 



w 

Wagner, and King Louis II., 791. 
Wallachian Soldier, The, 724. 
War Pictures, 37S-3fl, 470-1M, 510. 
Warwickshire, Rural beauty in, 639. 
Washburne, Mr. in Paris, 444. 

— Mr. and Archbishop Darboy, 496. 
Wellington, Duke of, 612. 
Wekder, General Von, Protest of, 281. 
West India Docks, The, 537. 
Westminster Hall, 574. 

— Palace, 572, 574 ; The Clock Tower, 574. 
Whitman, Walt., Quotation from, 490. 
Wickede, Von, on the surrender of Sedan, 255 
Wilhelm, Prince Friedrich, at the Passion Play, 796. 
Wilhelmshohe, Napoleon III. at, 258, 

William, of Prussia, King, in Paris during the Exposi- 
tion of 1867, 28. 

— On the battle-field, 212; Narrow escape of, 213. 

— Journey across the battle-field, 257 ; In Versailles, 330. 

— Delegation to, 352 

— Crowned Emperor of Germany, 365 

— Emperor of Germany, 816. 

Wilson, Professor, on the Lake Country, 04^. 
Wimbledon Camp, 54J. 
Windsor, Town and Castle of, 550. 

— Edward III at, 551; Memorials of, 552. 

— Queen Victoria at, 552; St. George's chapel, 554. 

— The Audience Chamber ; Treasures of . Park, 555. 
Weissenburg, during the war, Echoes from, 192, 

— The Crown Prince at, 197 ; Prisoners of war in, 321, 
Woerth during the Franco-German war. 198. 

— The horrors of the retreat from, 201. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, at Hampton Court, 550. 
Wolseley, Lord, at Tel-el-Kebir, 822. 

— And the Gordon relief expedition, 830, 

— Return to England, 834. 

Women, Execution of, 488; Of the Commune, The, 460 ; 

Of Loftscha, The, 762 ; Of Montenegro, 005. 
Woolwich Arsenal, 533, 536; Town, Dockyard, 536. 
Wren, Sir Christopher. 611.' 
Wrobleski, General, Surrender of, 500. 



Yacht Clubs in England, 634. 
Yonine, Alexandre, 697. 

z 

Zbbehr, and General Gordon, 827. 



GLOSSARY. 



fate, f.ire, fat, organ, fire, far, fit. .\ similar to but longer than e, a the prolonged sound of a, 8 the short 
sound ol .1. 9 as s. mete, her, e less prolonged than e, met, met. g hard, pine, pTn, pin, fir. n blends the 

sounds of u and y < onsonant. Boston, wool, moon, note, note, not, not. pure, rut. s soft z. D similar to 
the sound of th in tin-. G, K, the sound of ch in the -Scottish word loch. Jt a strongly aspirated h. I (1 
liquid) like Hi in million. M, N, and N° are nasal, l; the sound of rr in terror (trilled), ii indicates the 
sound of the French u, u the sound of the French eu, u the short sound of ri. vv similar to our v. 
w the vowels joined by it are pronounced almost in one syllable. 



A. 

Abderrahrnan, abd'eR-RaH'man. 

About, i boo'. 

Alcantara, al-kln'ta-ra. 

Alcazar de San Juan, al-k.i't her dlsan Hoo-4n'. 

Aldobrandini, al -do bitan-dee'nee. 

Alvensleben, al'vens-li-ben. 

Alzey, llt'si. 

Amiens, am'e-enz. 

Andrieu, ON'dRe'uh'. 

Angouleme, d', d6N°'goo'l§m' 

Appenweier, Ip'pen-ftl'er. 

Aranjuez, .i ran-Hweth'. 

Arnault, .ii: no'. 

Asnieres, as'ne-aiR'. 

Aspromonte, as-pro-mon'ta. 

Auber, 6'baik'. 

Augier, o-zhe-a'. 

Austerlitz, aws'ter-litz. 

Auteuil, f. ml'. 



Bapaume, ba'pom'. 
Barberini, baR-ba-ree'nee. 
Baithelemy, bSi tal'me'. 
Batignolles, la teen yoll'. 
Bayreuth, or Baireuth, bi'ruth. 
Bazeilles, ba'zail'. 
Beaugency, bo zh&N°'see'. 
Benedetti, bi-nS det'tee. 
Biarritz, be-aR'Rits'. 
Bievre, be-aiv'r'. 
Bischheim, bish'hime. 
Bitche, oi Bitsch, beetch. 



Blanqui, blorj'ke'. 

Bonjean, Iion'zIi6n'. 

Boulogne, boo'lon', 

Brasseur, bRa'sUR'. 

Bucharest, or Bukharest, bu'ko-rest'. 

Buzancy, Im /6.\°'see'. 



Canrobert, k&N'ro'baiR'. 
Carlsruhe, katds'roo'. 
Cavaignac, ka \.\u yik'. 
Cayenne, ka-yenn', or ki'Snn'. 
Cellini, chSI-lee'nee. 
Cespedes, thes-pa'nes. 
Chalons, sha'lov'. 
Changamier, shftN'giR'ne-i'. 
Chateandun, sha'to'duN '. 
Cherbourg, sheR'burg. 
Choisy, shwa'zee'. 
Civita Vecchia, chee've-ta vek'ke-a. 
Coblentz, ko'blSNss'. 
Coello. ko Sl'yo. 
Compiegne, koM'pe-aiii'. 
Conde, kon'di. 
Correggio, kor-red'jo. 
Coulommier, koo'lom'me-a'. 
Craiova, or Krajova, kra-yo'va. 
Cremieux, kui'me-uh'. 
Crinan, kiee'nan. 

D. 

Dampierre, dos jie-aik'. 

D'Aumale, do'mtl'. 

De Castelnau, deli kts'tel'nc/. 



GLOSSARY. 



8l>3 



Decazes, deh-kiz'. 

Delacroix, d'la'kRwa'. 

De Medici, da med'e-chee. 

De Wimpffen, deli Cvimp'fen. 

Diaz, dee'az. 

Dombrowski, dom-brov'skee. 

Donchery, d6N G 'sheh-ree'. 

Drouyn de Lhuys, dRoo'aN' deh lii-e'. 

Dulcigno, dool-cheen'yo. 

Dun'staff'nage. 

Dupin, dii'paN'. 



Ecouen, a'koo-6N°'. 
Emilia, a-meel'ee-a. 
Enghien, os^'ghe .in°'. 
Espartero, es-paR-ta'ro. 
Eudes, ud. 



F. 



Flavigny, fia'veen'yee'. 
Floquet, flo'ki'. 
Flourens, floo'r6N'. 



Gabrova, ga-bro'va. 
Gerrnersheim, gheR'mers-hime'. 
Ghika, gee'ka. 
Giordano, joR-da'no. 
Giurgevo, joor-ja'vo. 
Glogau, glo'govv. 
Goethe, go'teh. 
Gortschakoff, goR'cha-koP. 
Guerrero, ger-ra'ro. 
Guise, de, deh gvveez. 

H. 

Haguenau, hag'no', or ag'no'. 
Hatzfeldt, hats'felt'. 
Heraclius, her-a-cll'us. 
Hohenlinden, ho'en-lind'en. 
Hohenlohe, ho'en-lo'eh. 
Hyacinthe, e'S'saNt'. 
Hyeres, ee-aiR'. 

J- 

Jemmapes, zha'map'. 

Jerez de la Frontera, Ha-rSth' da la fron-t&'ra. 

Joachim, yo'a-Kim. 

Joinville-le-Font, zh\vaN G 'veel' leh pdN G . 



K. 

Kaiserslautern, ki'zers-low'tern. 
Kalafat, ka'la-fat'. 
Kezanlik, kez'anlik'. 



Laboulaye, li'boo'li'. 

La Chaise, la shiz. 

La Cretelle, la kneh-teT. 

Laferte-sous-Jouarre, la feR'ta' soo zhoo-aR' 

Lanjuinais, Io.n'zIiu-c'iiA' 

Lausanne, lo'zann'. 

Le Flo, leh-flo'. 

Leibnitz, lib'nlts. 

Levallois, leh-val'wa'. 

Ligne, de, deh lefi. 

Liguria, lee-goo're-a. 

Limoges, lee'mozh'. 

Loftscha, loft'cha. 

Longwy, luN°'vee'. 

M. 

Maier, ml'er. 

Mainz, nients. 

Marseilles, mar-salz'. 

Mars la Tour, maR'la'tooR'. 

Mediomat'rici (an ancient name of Metz). 

Meudon, muh'ddN '. 

Meurice, muh'ress'. 

Meurthe, muRt. 

Mezieres, mez'e-aiR'. 

Millais, mil'la'. 

Miot, me'o'. 

Mirabeau, me'ri'bo'. 

Montpensier, de, deh mAN'poN'se-A'. 

Murviedro, moor-ve-a'dro. 

N. 

Nanteuil, nuN°'tuI'. 
Narvaez, naR-va-eth'. 
Nemours, neh-mooR'. 
Neuilly, nuh'yee'. 
Notre Dame, not'r dam. 



Odescalchi, o-des-kal'kee. 
Offenbach, offen-bak'. 



Paladines, de, deh pS'lS'den'. 
Ferier, pa're-A'. 
Perigueux, pa'ree'guh'. 



s,;i 



GLOSSARY. 



Perugia, paroo'ja. 
Phalsbourg, fals'booR'. 
Pitesti, pe-tSs'tee. 
Piickler, piik'ler. 



Sevres, s£vr. 
Sinmitza, sim-nit'sa. 
Spalatro, spa-la'tro. 
Suresnes, sii'rain'. 



Q. 



Queretaro, ki-ii'ta-ro. 



Ragusa, ra-goo'sa. 
Rambouillet, i 6m boo'yi'. 
Reichshoffen, riks hof'fSn'. 
Ribera, re-na'ra. 
Rimini, ree'me-ne. 
Rodriguez, ro-dRee'geth. 
Roncesvalles, ron'se-val'les. 
Rospigliosi, ros-pel-yo'see. 
Roubaix, roo'ba'. 
Rouen, roo'en. 
Rueil, rwal 
Rustchuk, rous-chook'. 



Saarbriick, 



>i lik. 



Saargemiind, slR'gheli-niiint'. 

Sagun'tum ( im ienl name for Murviedro). 

St. Etienne. saM a'te-enn'. 

St. Hilaire, saNt re Ian'. 

Saint Lazaie, saN° la'zaR'. 

St. Ouen, saNt w6n g . 

St. Symphorien, s1n° seem'fo'ree'aN '. 

Saisset, si si'. 

San Juan, sail Hoo-an'. 

Santa Cruz, san'ta kroos. 

Saragossa, sa-ra-gos'sa. 

Sarrelouis (Saar-Louis), sSr-Ioo'is. 

Save, sav, or siv. 

Sceaux, so. 

Schiltigheim, shil'tiG-hlme'. 

Schleswig-Holstein, shles'&ig bol'stine. 

Schoelcher, shol'Ker, "i sho'el'shaiR'. 

Schoenbrunn, slien'broon. 

Scutari, skoo'ta-re. 



Temesvar, tem Ssh-viR'. 
Thiers, te ,iii;'. 
Thionville, te'6N G 'veel'. 
Todleben, tot'li ben. 
Tourgueiieff. tool geh-nef. 
Trebigne, tri-beeii'ya. 
Trieste, tre-est'. 
Trochu, tRo'shii'. 
Trosachs, tros'aks. 
Trouville, tioo'veel'. 



Vacquerri, vf'ki're'. 

Vaillant, \3 w/ 

Valladolid, v. il la-do-lid'. 

Valles, val'ySs 

Vauban, vo'boN'. 

Velasquez, vi-Ias'k§th. 

Versailles, ver-s&lz'. 

Vierzon, vl-cu z6n°'. 

Villejuif, veel zhweef. 

Villeneuve, veel'nuv'. 

Viliiers-le-Bel, vee'yi' leh bel. 

Vinci, da, da ven'chee. 

Von Hoheiizollern, Ion ho'en-tsol'IeRU. 

w. 

Walewski, wa-lev'skee. 
Wesel, fta'sel. 
Wiesbaden, ftees'bl'den. 
Wintei halter, wm'ier-lial'ter. 
Woerth, vo-aiu'. 



Zurbaran, thooR-ba-ran'. 
Zurich, zoo'rik. 






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